The Iliad

Epic tale of war

Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,

murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,

hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,

great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,

feasts for the dogs and birds,

and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.

Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,

Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.

The Iliad has been on my to-read list for a while as something I’ve long felt I

should read given its place in the Western canon, but I wasn’t seriously intending to start it anytime soon. I find poetry difficult and have never been especially interested in mythology, so I was expecting Homer to be something of a chore to get through—an enlightening chore, but a chore nonetheless. However, after listening to a podcast that discussed different translations, I half-heartedly picked up the Fagles to read a few pages and see if I could at least settle on an edition…and I couldn’t put it down.

I can honestly say

The Iliad is nothing like I expected and nothing like I’ve ever read before. To start with, Greek poetry doesn’t rhyme, and the very subtle meter that Fagles uses serves to propel the story forward, which I loved. The writing style is filled with imagery and simile after simile, which gives an incredible texture. As such, it was incredibly readable, and for large sections I was completely engrossed.

And then there’s the content itself: it’s incredibly violent and gory to an extent I was not anticipating to be so explicit on the page. There are only so many ways to describe someone being disemboweled or impaled or brained and so the battle scenes did get a bit monotonous, but the poem is shockingly visceral in a way that feels vibrantly alive. Homer also falls back on a bit of an odd (to my modern sensibilities) format where he introduces a warrior, gives a quick backstory about his father or new wife and how much they love him, and immediately dispatches him. (I assume that at least some of these must be mythic figures discussed outside of Homer, but to me they were random characters.)

There’s also, of course, the mythology element. The gods are constantly interfering according to their own loyalties and Olympus politics, which is fascinating to read about. There are some captivating moments of high fantasy: various heroes are spirited away to save them from injury; a horse is temporarily granted the power of speech; Hephaestus forges a gorgeous and intricate shield; and in one of my favorite scenes, Achilles fights a literal river.

Overall, the world of ancient Greece feels not just foreign, but completely alien: the bloodlust, the immorality, the treatment of women, the importance of armor and prizes and glory, their relationships with one another (friendships so strong that they read as romances), their attitude toward the gods they worshiped. Yet

The Iliad is filled with action, complex interpersonal relationships, and powerful speeches that still resonate today.

There are some boring and difficult bits—the book that lists all the ships and their commanders was a bit rough, and getting used to (and remembering) patronymics was especially challenging—but I actually enjoyed it, which is not something I was expecting. I’m excited to add

The Odyssey to my reading list. I’ll definitely be sticking with Fagles as this translation was absolutely amazing!

(Oh, and one last thing: I didn’t realize that

The Iliad was the basis for the 2004 movie “Troy” until a little bit into it, when some things started to feel familiar. But wow, the movie spoils basically nothing because so many liberties were taken. Most surprising of all,

Troy still stands and Achilles still lives at the end of the poem, and there is no Trojan horse

!)

Some favorite passages:

But Achilles wept, and slipping away from his companions, far apart, sat down on the beach of the heaving gray sea and scanned the endless ocean.

Doomed to a short life, you have so little time. And not only short, now, but filled with heartbreak too, more than all other men alive—doomed twice over.

And Zeus the son of Cronus bowed his craggy dark brows and the deathless locks came pouring down from the thunderhead of the great immortal king and giant shock waves spread through all Olympus.

and Rumor, Zeus’s crier, like wildfire blazing among them, whipped them on.

and back again they surged from ships and shelters, back to the meeting grounds with a deep pounding din, thundering out as battle lines of breakers crash and drag along some endless beach, and the rough sea roars.

As a heavy surf assaults some roaring coast, piling breaker on breaker whipped by the West Wind, and out on the open sea a crest first rears its head then pounds down on the shore with hoarse, rumbling thunder and in come more shouldering crests, arching up and breaking against some rocky spit, exploding salt foam to the skies— so wave on wave they came, Achaean battalions ceaseless, surging on to war.

With that he hurled and Athena drove the shaft and it split the archer’s nose between the eyes— it cracked his glistening teeth, the tough bronze cut off his tongue at the roots, smashed his jaw and the point came ripping out beneath his chin.

they loosed this manic Ares—he has no sense of justice.

“High-hearted son of Tydeus, why ask about my birth? Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.

So now I am your host and friend in the heart of Argos, you are mine in Lycia when I visit in your country. Come, let us keep clear of each other’s spears, even there in the thick of battle. Look, plenty of Trojans there for me to kill, your famous allies too, any soldier the god will bring in range or I can run to ground. And plenty of Argives too—kill them if you can. But let’s trade armor. The men must know our claim: we are sworn friends from our fathers’ days till now!”

In the same breath, shining Hector reached down for his son—but the boy recoiled, cringing against his nurse’s full breast, screaming out at the sight of his own father, terrified by the flashing bronze, the horsehair crest, the great ridge of the helmet nodding, bristling terror— so it struck his eyes. And his loving father laughed, his mother laughed as well, and glorious Hector, quickly lifting the helmet from his head, set it down on the ground, fiery in the sunlight, and raising his son he kissed him, tossed him in his arms, lifting a prayer to Zeus and the other deathless gods: “Zeus, all you immortals! Grant this boy, my son, may be like me, first in glory among the Trojans, strong and brave like me, and rule all Troy in power and one day let them say, ‘He is a better man than his father!’— when he comes home from battle bearing the bloody gear of the mortal enemy he has killed in war— a joy to his mother’s heart.”

No man will hurl me down to Death, against my fate. And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you— it’s born with us the day that we are born.

Then with the daybreak not quite risen into dawn, the night and day still deadlocked,

As a garden poppy, burst into red bloom, bends, drooping its head to one side, weighed down by its full seeds and a sudden spring shower, so Gorgythion’s head fell limp over one shoulder, weighed down by his helmet.

Hundreds strong, as stars in the night sky glittering round the moon’s brilliance blaze in all their glory when the air falls to a sudden, windless calm . . . all the lookout peaks stand out and the jutting cliffs and the steep ravines and down from the high heavens bursts the boundless bright air and all the stars shine clear and the shepherd’s heart exults—so many fires burned between the ships and the Xanthus’ whirling rapids set by the men of Troy, bright against their walls. A thousand fires were burning there on the plain and beside each fire sat fifty fighting men poised in the leaping blaze, and champing oats and glistening barley, stationed by their chariots, stallions waited for Dawn to mount her glowing throne.

As crosswinds chop the sea where the fish swarm, the North Wind and the West Wind blasting out of Thrace in sudden, lightning attack, wave on blacker wave, cresting, heaving a tangled mass of seaweed out along the surf— so the Achaeans’ hearts were torn inside their chests.

All this— I would extend to him if he will end his anger. Let him submit to me! Only the god of death is so relentless, Death submits to no one— so mortals hate him most of all the gods. Let him bow down to me!

The same honor waits for the coward and the brave. They both go down to Death, the fighter who shirks, the one who works to exhaustion.

From me alone, Achilles of all Achaeans, he seizes, he keeps the bride I love . . . Well let him bed her now— enjoy her to the hilt!

Why must we battle Trojans, men of Argos? Why did he muster an army, lead us here, that son of Atreus? Why, why in the world if not for Helen with her loose and lustrous hair? Are they the only men alive who love their wives, those sons of Atreus? Never! Any decent man, a man with sense, loves his own, cares for his own as deeply as I, I loved that woman with all my heart, though I won her like a trophy with my spear . . .

Mother tells me, the immortal goddess Thetis with her glistening feet, that two fates bear me on to the day of death. If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy, my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies. If I voyage back to the fatherland I love, my pride, my glory dies . . . true, but the life that’s left me will be long, the stroke of death will not come on me quickly.

into the black night they went like two lions stalking through the carnage and the corpses, through piles of armor and black pools of blood.

There is a vast cave, down in the dark sounding depths, mid-sea between Tenedos and Imbros’ rugged cliffs ... Here the god of the earthquake drove his horses down,

And he went on to war as grim as murderous Ares, his good son Panic stalking beside him, tough, fearless, striking terror in even the combat-hardened veteran, yes, both of them marching out of Thrace, geared to fight the Ephyri or Phlegians great with heart, but they turn deaf ears to the prayers of both sides at once, handing glory to either side they choose.

There she fell in with Sleep, twin brother of Death,

With that the son of Cronus caught his wife in his arms and under them now the holy earth burst with fresh green grass, crocus and hyacinth, clover soaked with dew, so thick and soft it lifted their bodies off the hard, packed ground ... Folded deep in that bed they lay and round them wrapped a marvelous cloud of gold, and glistening showers of dew rained down around them both. And so, deep in peace, the Father slept on Gargaron peak, conquered by Sleep and strong assaults of Love, his wife locked in his arms.

the one Peneleos lanced beneath the brows, down to the eyes’ roots and scooped an eyeball out— the spear cut clean through the socket, out behind the nape and backward down he sat, both hands stretched wide as Peneleos, quickly drawing his whetted sword, hacked him square in the neck and lopped his head and down on the ground it tumbled, helmet and all. But the big spear’s point still stuck in the eye socket— hoisting the head high like a poppy-head on the shaft he flourished it in the eyes of all the Trojans now, yelling out his boast: “Go tell them from me, you Trojans, tell the loving father and mother of lofty Ilioneus to start the dirges in the halls!

and he tore that Argive rampart down with the same ease some boy at the seashore knocks sand castles down— he no sooner builds his playthings up, child’s play, than he wrecks them all with hands and kicking feet, just for the sport of it.

Death cut him short. The end closed in around him. Flying free of his limbs his soul went winging down to the House of Death, wailing his fate, leaving his manhood far behind, his young and supple strength.

There he made the earth and there the sky and the sea and the inexhaustible blazing sun and the moon rounding full and there the constellations, all that crown the heavens, the Pleiades and the Hyades, Orion in all his power too and the Great Bear that mankind also calls the Wagon: she wheels on her axis always fixed, watching the Hunter, and she alone is denied a plunge in the Ocean’s baths.

And terror-struck in the underworld, Hades lord of the dead cringed and sprang from his throne and screamed shrill, fearing the god who rocks the ground above his realm, giant Poseidon, would burst the earth wide open now and lay bare to mortal men and immortal gods at last the houses of the dead—the dank, moldering horrors that fill the deathless gods themselves with loathing.

still more Paeonian men the runner would have killed if the swirling river had not risen, crying out in fury, taking a man’s shape, its voice breaking out of a whirlpool: “Stop. Achilles! Greater than any man on earth, greater in outrage too— for the gods themselves are always at your side! But if Zeus allows you to kill off all the Trojans, drive them out of my depths at least, I ask you, out on the plain and do your butchery there. All my lovely rapids are crammed with corpses now, no channel in sight to sweep my currents out to sacred sea— I’m choked with corpses and still you slaughter more, you blot out more! Leave me alone, have done— captain of armies, I am filled with horror!”

Hard as the autumn North Wind hits a leveled field just drenched in a downpour, quickly dries it off and the farmer is glad and starts to till his soil— so the whole plain was parched and the god of fire devoured all the dead, then blazing in all his glory veered for the river— an inferno—the elms burned, the willows and tamarisks burned and the lotus burned and the galingale and reeds and rushes. all that flourished along the running river’s lush banks and the eels writhed and fish in the whirlpools leapt high, breaking the surface left and right in a sheen of fire, gasping under the Master Smith Hephaestus’ blast and now the river’s strength was burning out, he panted the god’s name: “Hephaestus—stop!

He screamed in flames, his clear currents bubbling up like a cauldron whipped by crackling fire as it melts down the lard of a fat swine, splattering up around the rim— dry logs blazing under it, lashing it to the boit— so the river burned, his clear currents seethed and lost all will to flow.

And Zeus heard the chaos, throned on Olympus heights, and laughed deep in his own great heart, delighted to see the gods engage in all-out conflict.

for a second grief this harsh will never touch my heart while I am still among the living …

Bury me, quickly—let me pass the Gates of Hades. They hold me off at a distance, all the souls, the shades of the burnt-out, breathless dead, never to let me cross the river, mingle with them ... They leave me to wander up and down, abandoned, lost at the House of Death with the all-embracing gates.

But one thing more. A last request—grant it, please. Never bury my bones apart from yours, Achilles, let them lie together ... just as we grew up together in your house,

Oh come closer! Throw our arms around each other, just for a moment— take some joy in the tears that numb the heart!” In the same breath he stretched his loving arms but could not seize him, no, the ghost slipped underground like a wisp of smoke ... with a high thin cry.

No doubt some mortal has suffered a dearer loss than this, a brother born in the same womb, or even a son ... he grieves, he weeps, but then his tears are through. The Fates have given mortals hearts that can endure.

I deserve more pity ... I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before— I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son.” Those words stirred within Achilles a deep desire to grieve for his own father. Taking the old man’s hand he gently moved him back.

And so in the same breath I mourn for you and me, my doom-struck, harrowed heart! Now there is no one left in the wide realm of Troy, no friend to treat me kindly— all the countrymen cringe from me in loathing!”