Placing opposing ideas or words side by side, so that one illuminates the other through contrast.
In the Iliad
Tell me now, Muses who have Olympian homes, for you are goddesses, you are present and know all things, while we only hear the fame and know nothing.
The line opposes the goddesses, who "are present and know all things," to men, who "only hear the fame and know nothing." The contrast between knowing everything and knowing nothing explains why the poet needs them for what he is about to tell.
Book II: The Dream and the Catalog of the Ships, the narrator
Consider, son of Tydeus, and withdraw, and do not want to think as the gods do, for the race of the immortal gods is never like that of men who walk upon the earth.
Book V: The Aristeia of Diomedes, Apollo
For my mother, the goddess Thetis of the silver feet, says that two fates of death lead me to my end: if I stay here and fight against the city of the Trojans, I lose my return, but my glory will be imperishable; if I go home, to my dear fatherland, I lose my good glory, but long life will be given me, and the end of death will not reach me soon.
Book IX: The Embassy to Achilles, Achilles
For I hate, as much as the gates of Hades, the man who hides one thing in his chest and says another.
Book IX: The Embassy to Achilles, Achilles
The son of Cronus, of crooked counsels, gave you in two parts: with the scepter he gave you to be honored above all, but he did not give you courage, which is the greatest power.
Book IX: The Embassy to Achilles, Diomedes
for now, for all the Achaeans, it hangs on the edge of a razor: either a pitiful ruin, or life.
my friend, if by fleeing this war we were always going to be ageless and immortal, I would not fight among the foremost, nor would I send you into the battle that gives glory to men; but now, in any case, the Keres of death stand over us, countless, which no mortal can flee or escape. Let us go, and either we will give glory to someone, or someone to us.
Book XII: The Assault on the Wall, Sarpedon
there is plenty of everything, of sleep, of love, of sweet song and of faultless dance, things of which anyone would rather have his fill than of war; but the Trojans never have their fill of fighting.
Book XIII: The Battle at the Ships, Menelaus
one thing the Father gave him, another he refused with a nod: to keep war and battle away from the ships he granted; to return safe and sound from the battle, he refused.
Book XVI: The Death of Patroclus, the narrator
Alas, wretched ones, why did we give you to King Peleus, a mortal, you who neither grow old nor die? Was it so that you would have sorrows among wretched men? For of all that breathes and crawls upon the earth, nothing is more pitiable than man.
Book XVII: The Fight over Patroclus' Body, Zeus
that I not die without fight and without glory, but after doing something great, so that those to come will also know of it.
Book XXII: The Death of Hector, Hector
Alas, then there is, even in the house of Hades, soul and image, but in them there is no understanding at all.
Book XXIII: The Funeral Games, Achilles
I have endured what no other mortal on earth has yet endured: to raise to my lips the hand of the man who killed my sons.
Book XXIV: The Ransom of Hector, Priam
for two jars lie on the floor of Zeus, of gifts, of those he gives: one of evils, the other of goods. For him to whom Zeus, who delights in the thunderbolt, gives them mixed, he meets now with an evil, now with a good.
Book XXIV: The Ransom of Hector, Achilles
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