Book I: The Plague and the Wrath
Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus, the baneful wrath that brought the Achaeans countless sorrows.
Explanation and analysis
The poem begins with the narrator asking a goddess to sing. Before any character speaks, he states the subject: not the war of Troy, which already lasts nine years when the song opens, but the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus. Whoever hears or reads is warned that the story that follows is that of a feeling and of what it cost.
The first word of the Greek verse is “wrath,” and it comes before the hero's name. Homer almost uses this word only for the gods and for Achilles, and applying it to a man already signals the magnitude of what will happen. The narrator also measures the price: this wrath imposed “countless griefs” on the Achaeans, Achilles' own companions. A few lines later the poet adds that all this fulfilled the design of Zeus, so that the wrath has two causes placed side by side, a man's choice and a god's will.
The proem can be read as the announcement of a poem about wounded honor, in which the war is only the stage where a personal offense spreads through an entire army. It can also be read as the story of a force greater than the hero himself, a “baneful” wrath that drags him and drags the others. The poem does not choose between the two readings, and it is this balance that the reader carries into the books that follow.
for I did not come here to fight the spear-armed Trojans, since they have never wronged me at all.
Explanation and analysis
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Mother, since you bore me to live but a short while, at least the Olympian should have put honor in my hands.
Explanation and analysis
Book II: The Dream and the Catalog of the Ships
Tell me now, Muses who have homes on Olympus, for you are goddesses, you are present, and you know all, while we only hear the report and know nothing.
Explanation and analysis
the rule of many is not good; let there be one chief, one king, to whom the son of Cronus, of crooked counsel, gave the scepter and the laws, so that he may decide for them.
Explanation and analysis
Book III: The Duel of Paris and Menelaus
she was weaving a great web, a double purple cloak, and in it she embroidered the many battles of the horse-taming Trojans and the bronze-armored Achaeans, which they suffered for her sake at the hands of Ares.
Explanation and analysis
for me you are not to blame; the gods are to blame, the gods who hurled against me the war of many tears of the Achaeans.
Explanation and analysis
Book IV: The Truce Broken
she, small at first, arms herself, but then sets her head in the sky and walks upon the earth;
Explanation and analysis
she turned the arrow away from the skin as far as a mother drives a fly away from her son when he sleeps the sweet sleep,
Explanation and analysis
Book V: The Aristeia of Diomedes
Consider, son of Tydeus, and withdraw, and do not wish to think as the gods do, for the race of the immortal gods is never like that of men who walk upon the earth.
Explanation and analysis
and he drew back the spear again; and brazen Ares roared as loudly as nine or ten thousand men roar in battle, when they join the strife of Ares.
Explanation and analysis
Book VI: Hector and Andromache
such is the generation of leaves, so is that of men. The leaves, some the wind throws to the ground, others the flourishing forest puts forth when the season of spring arrives; so is the generation of men: one is born, another dies away.
Explanation and analysis
Hector, you are for me father, reverend mother and brother, and you are my young husband.
Explanation and analysis
for this I know well, in spirit and in heart: the day will come when sacred Ilion will be destroyed, and Priam, and the people of Priam, good with the spear.
Explanation and analysis
and the boy drew back, crying out, into the bosom of his nurse with the lovely waist, frightened at the sight of his dear father, fearing the bronze and the horsehair plume that he saw nodding terribly from the top of the helmet.
Explanation and analysis
Book VII: The Duel of Hector and Ajax
let us give each other notable gifts, so that someone among Achaeans and Trojans may say: they fought over the quarrel that devours the spirit, and then parted again in friendship, reconciled.
Explanation and analysis
and that he return my body to my home, so that the Trojans and the Trojan wives may give me, once I am dead, my share of fire.
Explanation and analysis
Book VIII: The Battle Interrupted
and then the Father stretched out the golden scales; in them he placed two Keres, the fates of the death that strikes, one of the Trojans, tamers of horses, and the other of the Achaeans in bronze tunics; he took it by the middle and raised it: the fatal day of the Achaeans sank down.
Explanation and analysis
As when in the sky the stars around the bright moon shine forth, when the air is without wind; [...] so many, between the ships and the streams of the Xanthus, were the blazing campfires of the Trojans before Ilion. A thousand fires burned on the plain, and beside each one sat fifty men, in the light of the burning fire.
Explanation and analysis
Book IX: The Embassy to Achilles
For my mother, the goddess Thetis of the silver feet, says that two fates of death bring 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 return home, to my dear fatherland, I lose my good glory, but long life will be granted me, and the end of death will not reach me soon.
Explanation and analysis
For I hate, as much as the gates of Hades, the man who hides one thing in his chest and says another.
Explanation and analysis
To you the son of Cronus, of crooked counsel, gave in two parts: with the scepter he gave you to be honored above all, but courage he did not give you, which is the greatest power.
Explanation and analysis
Book X: The Doloneia
Book XI: The Aristeia of Agamemnon
Alas, what will become of me? It would be a great evil if I fled, out of fear of the crowd; worse still if I were captured alone, for the son of Cronus has put the other Danaans to flight. But why does my heart tell me these things? I know that cowards keep away from war, and that the one who distinguishes himself in combat must hold firm against him, whether he is wounded or wounds another.
Explanation and analysis
but the father Zeus, who dwells on high, cast fear into Ajax: he stopped, stunned, threw the seven-layered shield onto his back and drew back, glaring at the crowd like a beast, turning at every step and slowly shifting from one knee to the other.
Explanation and analysis
Book XII: The Assault on the Wall
my friend, if, by fleeing this war, we were to be forever without old age and immortal, I would not fight among the foremost myself, nor would I send you into the combat that gives glory to men; but now, in any case, the Keres of death stand over us, countless, and no mortal can flee them or escape. Come, let us either give glory to someone, or someone to us.
Explanation and analysis
but they held as the scale of an honest woman who works wool: she holds the weight and the wool and, on each side, evens the pans, to earn a meager wage for her children; so, equal, the combat and the war stretched out between them, until Zeus gave greater glory to Hector, son of Priam, the first to leap inside the wall of the Achaeans.
Explanation and analysis
Book XIII: The Battle at the Ships
of everything there is abundance, of sleep, of love, of sweet song and of flawless dance, things of which anyone would rather have his fill than of war; but the Trojans never have their fill of combat.
Explanation and analysis
Book XIV: Zeus's Deception
she spoke, and loosed from her breast the embroidered girdle, of many colors, where all the charms were made: in it there was love, in it desire, in it the intimate talk, the seduction that steals the wits even of one who thinks with firmness.
Explanation and analysis
for there is no shame in fleeing evil, not even by night; better is he who, fleeing, escapes evil than he who is captured.
Explanation and analysis
Book XV: The Trojans at the Ships
and he will rouse his companion Patroclus, whom illustrious Hector will kill with the spear before Ilion, after Patroclus has destroyed many other young men, and among them my son, the divine Sarpedon. Angered over him, divine Achilles will kill Hector.
Explanation and analysis
and he tore down the wall of the Achaeans with all ease, as when a child, by the sea, after making toys of sand in its childishness, tears them down again with its feet and hands, playing.
Explanation and analysis
Book XVI: The Death of Patroclus
why do you weep, Patroclus, like a little girl who, running beside her mother, begs to be carried in her arms, clinging to her dress, and holds her back when she is in a hurry,
Explanation and analysis
one thing the Father granted him, another he refused with a nod: to drive the war and the battle away from the ships, that he granted; to return safe and sound from the battle, he refused.
Explanation and analysis
I will tell you one more thing, and keep it in your spirit: you yourself will not live long; already death and mighty fate are near you, which will overcome you at the hands of Achilles, the blameless son of Aeacus.
Explanation and analysis
Book XVII: The Struggle for Patroclus's Body
but, like the stele that stands firm over the tomb of a dead man or woman, so they stood, motionless, holding the fine chariot, with their heads fixed to the ground; and hot tears ran from their eyelids to the soil, as they wept, longing for their charioteer.
Explanation and analysis
Alas, unhappy ones, why did we give you to King Peleus, a mortal, when you neither grow old nor die? Was it so that you might have sorrows among wretched men? For of all that breathes and crawls upon the earth, nothing is more pitiable than man.
Explanation and analysis
Book XVIII: Achilles' Shield
Patroclus lies, and around the naked body the men fight; and as for the armor, it is Hector who has it, of the gleaming helmet. So he spoke, and a black cloud of grief covered Achilles.
Explanation and analysis
May discord vanish from among gods and men, and wrath, which drives even the very wise to rage, the wrath that, far sweeter than dripping honey, grows like smoke in the breasts of men: that is how the lord of men, Agamemnon, angered me just now.
Explanation and analysis
In it he made the earth, in it the sky, in it the sea, and the tireless sun and the full moon, and in it all the stars with which the sky crowns itself.
Explanation and analysis
Book XIX: The End of Wrath
Now, indeed, I put an end to my wrath, and it does not befit me to remain forever enraged without respite;
Explanation and analysis
Xanthus, why do you prophesy my death to me? You need not. I know it well myself: my fate is to perish here, far from my dear father and mother; but even so, I will not stop until I have driven the Trojans to be sated with war.
Explanation and analysis
From it came a grinding of teeth, and his eyes shone like a flash of fire, and into his heart there entered an unbearable grief; and he, furious against the Trojans, put on the gifts of the god, which Hephaestus made working them.
Explanation and analysis
Book XX: The Battle of the Gods
As divine fire ravages the deep valleys of a parched mountain, and the dense forest burns, and the wind, stirring it everywhere, rolls the flame along, so he ran everywhere with the spear, like a god, pursuing those who were dying; and the black earth ran with blood.
Explanation and analysis
Fickle is the tongue of mortals, and in it there are words of every kind, and the pasture of words is wide on either side. The word you speak, such you will hear.
Explanation and analysis
Book XXI: Achilles and the River
But, friend, you too must die: why do you lament so? Patroclus also died, who was far better than you.
Explanation and analysis
wretched mortals, who, like leaves, now blaze in full vigor, eating the fruit of the earth, now wither lifeless.
Explanation and analysis
Book XXII: The Death of Hector
as in a dream one cannot pursue one who flees: neither can the other escape, nor can the first catch up; so one could not seize him with his feet, nor the other get away.
Explanation and analysis
Hector, abominable one, do not speak to me of oaths; as there are no faithful pacts between lions and men, nor do wolves and lambs have a concordant spirit, but they think ill of one another without ceasing.
Explanation and analysis
that I may not die without struggle and without glory, but after doing something great, so that those who come after may also come to know of it.
Explanation and analysis
he placed in them the two Keres of death that brings prolonged pain, that of Achilles and that of Hector, tamer of horses; he lifted it holding it by the middle: the fatal day of Hector sank, went down to Hades, and Phoebus Apollo left him.
Explanation and analysis
Book XXIII: The Funeral Games
there came the soul of the unhappy Patroclus, in every way like him, in size, in the beautiful eyes and in the voice, and with the same clothes upon the body.
Explanation and analysis
Alas, so there exists, even in the house of Hades, soul and image, but in them there is no understanding at all.
Explanation and analysis
Book XXIV: The Ransom of Hector
I have endured what no other mortal on earth has yet endured: to raise to my lips the hand of the man who kills my sons.
Explanation and analysis
for two jars lie on the floor of Zeus, of gifts, of those he gives: one of evils, the other of goods. To whomever Zeus, who delights in the thunderbolt, gives mixing them, he sometimes meets with an evil, sometimes with a good.
Explanation and analysis
as he lies, dew-covered, and the blood has been washed away, clean in no part, and all the wounds have closed, those that were made on him, for many drove bronze into him. Thus the blessed gods watch over your son, even dead, because he was dear to their heart.