Discussion Questions

Achilles says he did not come to Troy because of the Trojans' offense, but to give honor to Menelaus and Agamemnon. If the war was not his, is the withdrawal betrayal of his companions or the just collection of a broken contract?

Chryses and Achilles, the two men dishonored by Agamemnon, ask a god to punish the whole army, and not only the king. What does the poem say about honor when it makes the two wronged men react in the same way?

Achilles knows from the first book that he will live briefly. Does knowing this make his anger more understandable or more grave?

Agamemnon proposes flight, citing the shame of a useless war, and Odysseus keeps the army in place, citing the shame of returning empty-handed. When honor serves both arguments, what decides which of them is worth more?

Zeus's Dream says that Agamemnon "could" take the city, and the king understands that he will take it that day. Whose responsibility is the error: that of the one who sends the message or of the one who reads it as a certainty?

Thersites voices from below the same complaint that Achilles had made from above, and he is beaten in front of everyone, while Achilles remains untouched by the ships. What does the poem show about who may say what to a king?

Priam says the fault lies with the gods, the elders say Helen must leave, and she herself says she would have preferred to die. The poem leaves the three assessments side by side: what does each one reveal about who makes it?

Aphrodite breaks the strap when Menelaus was about to win. If the duel had ended with Paris's death, would the oath have ended the war? What in the text points to the answer?

Paris retreats before Menelaus and is rebuked by Hector, but soon proposes the duel. Does the change show that what moves him is public shame, or something more?

Zeus offers the choice between war and friendship, Hera demands the ruin of Troy, and Zeus yields in exchange for the right to destroy cities dear to her. What does this exchange say about how Homer's gods decide the fate of men?

Pandarus breaks the oath that Athena led him to break, and Agamemnon, without knowing it, sees in the gesture proof that Zeus will punish Troy. Is Pandarus's guilt smaller for having been persuaded by a goddess, or does the broken oath weigh the same either way?

Agamemnon rebukes Odysseus and Diomedes without having seen Tydeus or checked what the Cephallenians were doing, and the two react in opposite ways: one argues, the other keeps silent. What does each reaction show about how each hero understands honor before the king?

Athena gives Diomedes license to wound Aphrodite and forbids the other gods; then she loosens the limit against Ares. Who decides, in the book, where what a mortal can do against a god comes to an end?

Dione says that whoever fights against the immortals does not live long, and Apollo warns that the race of gods and the race of men are never alike. Diomedes wounded two gods and, before Apollo, withdrew. Does the poem separate the act of wounding from the gesture of recognizing the limit, or does it measure the two in the same way?

Sarpedon demands from Hector the presence of the Trojans and, wounded, asks him not to leave him as prey, and receives no answer. What reading of the ally's role in another's war does the book sustain?

Glaucus answers that the generation of men is like that of the leaves, and at once recites the whole genealogy. Does the image of the leaves lessen the weight of the lineage or, on the contrary, increase it?

Diomedes and Glaucus discover a bond of hospitality and halt the duel, while Hector, before his wife and son, returns to the combat. What does the poem show about what makes a bond worth more than war, and what keeps it from being worth more?

Hector tells Andromache that he knows Troy will fall and, in the same scene, asks Zeus that his son reign in Ilium. How should these two speeches be read together?

Hector proposes that the victor return the loser's body and that the tomb say one day who the dead man was. What does he ask of the duel: a victory, or a way of being remembered?

The Achaean army falls silent out of shame and fear, and only moves when Nestor calls up an absent old man who would ask after each of them. Why does shame before an absent man move more than danger before Hector?

The duel ends without a winner, in gifts, because night comes, and the truce for the dead ends at the wall that Poseidon disputes. What does the poem say about what the pauses of war decide, and about what they leave intact?

Zeus says that no god can drag him down by the golden chain, and then weighs the fate of each army on a scale. Does he decide the fate of men or only read it and carry it out? The book gives grounds for both answers.

Diomedes fears the phrase Hector will say about him, and Nestor answers with the Trojan widows whom Diomedes killed. Is a warrior's reputation in what is said of him or in what he has done?

Hera and Athena arm themselves against Zeus's order and turn back when Iris brings the threat and Hera says it is not worth fighting over mortals. What changed between the impulse to help the Greeks and the return to Olympus?

Achilles says that the same prize and the same death fall to the one who fights and to the one who stays. If honor ceases to be a measure, what still holds him to the battlefield, and what keeps him from leaving?

Odysseus repeats Agamemnon's offers, but does not repeat the last request, that Achilles submit. Is the omission tact or deceit, and how much does it weigh in the answer he receives?

Odysseus, Phoenix and Ajax try three paths: glory and compassion, personal relationship, and the custom of hospitality. Which of them comes closest to persuading Achilles, and what does the answer to each reveal about what he still wants?

Dolon hands over all he knows and asks to be bound until his word is confirmed, and Diomedes kills him all the same, on the argument that he would return. What does Dolon's death say about the value of information given in exchange for life?

Diomedes says that two see better than one, and Dolon goes alone and passes without noticing those waiting for him. Does the scene confirm Diomedes's rule, or only show Dolon's bad luck?

Nestor offers fame and a ewe, Hector offers a chariot and horses, Dolon asks for Achilles' horses. What does each offer reveal about what each side thinks moves a volunteer?

Agamemnon refuses the ransom of Antimachus's sons because of an offense by their father, and Diomedes had refused Dolon's out of safety. What does the poem gain by placing the two refusals in sequence, with reasons so different?

Diomedes resists knowing that Zeus wants to give power to the Trojans, and Odysseus resists because one who seeks distinction cannot draw back. Which of the two reasons better sustains staying in the fight: the certainty of defeat, or the rule of what is expected of a hero?

Nestor proposes to Patroclus Achilles' armor as a short breather, and the narrator has already warned that the call was the beginning of his evil. In light of that warning, is Nestor's proposal prudent or imprudent?

The Greeks' wall was built without hecatombs and lasts only while Hector lives and Achilles keeps his wrath. What does the narrator want the listener to think of the protection the Greeks built for themselves?

Hector sets aside the eagle omen because he trusts Zeus's promise, and Polydamas reads it as a warning. Who reads better what is happening, and what does the song show about the difference between the knowledge of one who reads signs and that of one who commands?

Sarpedon says that, if war made men immortal, he would not fight. Is honor worth something only because death is certain?

Poseidon helps the Greeks only in secret, because Zeus is the eldest and knows more. What does this limit say about the power of the gods in the poem, and what can a man expect from them?

Idomeneus describes the coward through the body, the color of the face, the knees, and the teeth, and the brave man through calm, but later he confesses that he fears Aeneas. Is fear what one sees in the body, or what one does with it?

Eucenor sets out for war knowing he will die sick at home or at the hands of the Trojans. Is choosing one's fate a way of living free of it, or only a way of choosing which version to suffer?

Odysseus and Diomedes refuse the flight proposed by Agamemnon for different reasons: one speaks of the army's spirit, the other of lineage and a practical way back to the battle. Which of the two answers actually changes the king's decision, and what does that show about how one who commands should be counseled?

Aphrodite's girdle holds a seduction that steals the mind even of those who think firmly, and Zeus, the most powerful of the gods, accepts without checking the same lie Hera told Aphrodite. Does the deception show Hera's cunning, Zeus's frailty, or both at once?

Peneleos and Acamas answer the deaths of their own with a message to parents and an avenging brother, and the song shows each one's victory as mourning in the other's house. What does the poem gain by placing these named families at the center of Poseidon's turn?

Zeus tells Hera, in five verses, that Patroclus will die, that Sarpedon, his son, will die, and that Achilles will kill Hector, and he does nothing to prevent it. What does it mean for a god to foresee the death of his own son and still carry out the plan?

Hera, Ares and Poseidon back down before Zeus for different reasons: the memory of the punishment, the intervention of Athena, the counsel of Iris. What order of power does the book sketch among the gods, and does it resemble the order among the kings in the camp?

Hector and Ajax ask their men to fight and die, using the homeland and the home as the reason. When both sides give the same reason to die, does the poem still leave the reader free to take sides?

Achilles gives Patroclus an explicit limit, to return when the ships are saved and not to go to Ilion, and Apollo repeats the warning on the walls, where Patroclus withdraws; still he dies. The narrator says that he erred and, in the same passage, that Zeus loosed his spirit. Was Patroclus's death the consequence of his own choice or of a plan of Zeus?

Achilles asks Zeus for two things and Zeus grants one. What does the prayer answered by half say about the relation between human request and divine will in this poem?

Zeus wants to save Sarpedon, and Hera answers that the other gods will not approve; he yields. What does the poem say about the limits of Zeus's power in showing him yielding to an argument from precedent?

Zeus protects Patroclus's body from humiliation and at the same time gives the victory to the Trojans and strength to Hector, who wears Achilles' armor. How does the book reconcile these two attitudes of Zeus?

Achilles still does not know of his friend's death, while almost everyone else fights over the body. What does the struggle over Patroclus's body say about the worth of a dead man in a war, both for those who defend him and for those who want to drag him away?

Achilles' horses weep for Patroclus and Zeus takes pity on them, while the men of the book go on killing one another. What does this animal grief, placed in the middle of the combat, say about human grief in the poem?

Achilles calls wrath sweet as honey and says it grows in the breast like smoke, and soon decides to set it aside and go after Hector. Does he end the wrath, or only change its target?

The shield shows weddings, a tribunal, a plowed field, a vineyard and a dance, alongside an ambush and a battle. What does this whole say about the world in which Achilles is going to fight?

Thetis knows that Hector's death brings Achilles' death right after, and still she goes up to Olympus to fetch the armor. What leads her to help her son carry out the choice that will kill him?

Agamemnon explains the offense by Ate, sent by Zeus, and Achilles accepts the same explanation. Does the poem treat this as an excuse, or as a description of how madness happens?

Achilles refuses to eat while Odysseus argues that the army must eat before fighting, and Zeus has Athena feed Achilles nectar and ambrosia. Who is right at this moment, and what does the poem say by resolving the question in this way?

Xanthus tells Achilles that he will die, and Achilles answers that he already knows. What does the horse's prophecy add to a destiny the hero already knows?

The gods come down to the battle, but they sit apart and intervene only to save someone: Aeneas, Hector. What does that say about the limits of the gods' power before what fate has fixed?

Aeneas and Hector answer Achilles with almost the same words before they fight. What does the poem gain by making two different Trojans say the same thing and end in such different ways?

Tros pleads and the narrator calls him a fool, because Achilles would not listen to him. What made the hero deaf to supplication, and what does it mean that the narrator explains this before the blow?

Lycaon offers the shared table, the ransom, and the gesture of holding the knees, and none of it moves Achilles. What does the reply, die too, friend, say about what the loss of Patroclus did to the rule of supplication?

The river protests that it cannot carry its dead to the sea, and soon it attacks Achilles. Does the poem treat it as a victim, as an offended god, or as an ally of Troy? What reading does each of these answers support in the text?

Apollo says that men are leaves and that it is not worth fighting for them, but afterward he protects the wall and Agenor and deceives Achilles. When what the gods say of men and what they do for them diverge, which of the two does the poem ask us to take seriously?

Hector left the shelter of the wall because he thought Deiphobus was beside him. If Athena had not deceived him, would he have fought in the same way? What does the flight of the three circuits say about this?

Zeus weighs the Keres and Hector's descends. Does the balance show that Zeus cannot change fate, or that he chooses not to change it? Does the answer change how one reads the scene?

Achilles tells Hector that no ransom will buy the body, and Priam already plans to go to the ships. What does the poem gain by placing Achilles' refusal and the old man's plan in the same book?

Achilles keeps his promise to Patroclus, giving the twelve Trojans to the fire and dragging Hector, and in the same book the gods protect Hector's body. Does the poem approve what Achilles does, or only record what he does and what the gods do?

Achilles gives his hair to Patroclus and has the friend's bones kept until he himself descends to Hades. What do these gestures show about what he knows of his own end, and how does that change the way one reads the wrath of Book 22?

In the games, Achilles concedes, corrects, and interrupts: he gives Antilochus the right to refuse, ties Ajax and Odysseus, and gives the prize to Agamemnon. Is he the same man who dragged Hector? What has changed in him, and what has not?

Achilles tells Priam that he had already decided to release the body, and Zeus had sent Thetis and Iris before the old man arrived. What does Priam's supplication add, if the decision had already been made?

Apollo says Achilles has lost pity, Hecuba predicts he will show no pity, and Zeus affirms he will spare the suppliant. What does the book show of Achilles that decides among the three predictions, and what does it leave open?

The poem ends at Hector's funeral, without the fall of Troy or the death of Achilles. What effect does it have to close the poem with the enemy's rite and not with the hero's victory?