51 Days That Shook the World!

These 51 days were truly remarkable and had a profound impact on the entire world.

It was a period filled with intense events, unexpected twists, and turns that left people in a state of shock and awe.

The world witnessed major political upheavals, social unrest, and economic challenges during these 51 days.

Leaders were forced to make difficult decisions, and nations had to adapt to the changing circumstances.

The events of these 51 days changed the course of history and set the stage for a new era.

People from all walks of life were affected, and the world will never be the same again.

It is a period that will be remembered for a long time to come, and its lessons will continue to shape our future.

The Iliad and Homer make you a small child who talks to himself during days of reading the epic. You practice the Homeric delirium with all its frenzy, imagining the battles in your mind, getting excited, angry, participating with your mind and actions, crying at the pitiful scenes of the heroes, the battlefield ablaze with the light of swords and the bodies thirsting for blood and glory. Above all, Homer plays with you as he wishes, along with his eternal gods and his semi-crazy heroes. He takes you to the ancient world, to Greece, to Troy, to the temple of Delphi, to the mountains of Olympus. Rarely do you feel strange when reading the epic, rarely do you find yourself far away there. It was not good to hide yourself behind the walls of the great Troy, you did not have the right to withdraw from the battle. Here, either you are or you are not, a victor or a victim of the anger of "Achilles", the swift-footed, always trembling in the clothes of war and anger together. He was born with anger and left with his madness wherever he went. When he heard of the killing of "Patroclus", he almost cut his throat with his knife if not for the wise Nestor who held his hands and stopped him.

A fierce war began with the abduction of the beautiful "Helen" from the land of Greece by "Paris", that wretch who brought misfortunes to his country. Hector himself once described him as "O you despised one, may the earth have swallowed you before you saw the light in the city of Priam." It was agreed that Paris was a womanizer, open to beauty and fond of this kind of adventures that led him to abduct women and bring them back to Troy as captives and slaves in his palace. He did not think that he had brought disasters to his people, which could lead to the destruction of his nation and its erasure from the map of the world when he seduced the beautiful "Helen", the wife of Menelaus, the brother of King Agamemnon. He abducted her from the palace and sailed with her to Troy to be his prisoner there.

Menelaus did not realize what had happened until he urged his brother to prepare the army and launch an expedition against the grieving Troy. His brother responded to that and gathered all the tribes, kings, and nobles of Greece to participate in the campaign, firstly to return the wife of Menelaus and secondly to plunder the treasures of Troy, which were famous for their quantity and wealth and which shone in the ancient world.

The troops came from everywhere and the Achaeans and the Danaans gathered to begin the siege and the war on the glorious Troy, led by Hector and before him Priam, that holy old man, the beloved of the gods. After nine years of sailing and hardship, as the epic describes, the great army arrived, led by King Agamemnon himself and his grieving brother, and the lord of anger and war, the swift-footed "Achilles", as Homer describes him, or Achilles the eternal Greek hero, always following glory and burning the walls of the ancient cities and the stately towers on the heads of their owners and capturing the most beautiful women of other lands. Achilles, who never lacked the satisfaction of killing heroes in the cries of war or the humiliation of the brave and crushing them in many dramatic scenes, the last of which was with Hector, the lord of Troy.

Achilles was sitting there in his tent, angry, and the muse of poetry herself sang in the description of his twofold anger. He cursed the day when the sailing and the fighting of the people of Troy were decided. This was not because of the captive that Agamemnon decided to keep for himself, Chryseis the enchanting, whom Agamemnon loved and betrayed his hero Achilles and took that beautiful woman from among that roaring lion called Achilles.
Achilles, the beast of anger within him, turned into an unyielding mountain. He decided to leave his comrades to face their fate in the face of the Trojans, who were longing for such a conflict that would lead to the separation of the greatest power from the field of the sons of Greece, who decided to continue the war without him.
That anger is what the Iliad was based on - that is, the anger of Achilles - and it was the beginning of writing this famous epic. Which was inspired by:
"Sing to me, O Muse, of the anger of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another... For it was the son of Leto, Apollo, who was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host, so that the people died thick, for the son of Atreus had dishonored Chryses, the priest of Apollo."
As soon as I started reading these first lines, I felt a strange thousandfold towards what I read, as if it was engraved to remain eternal and immune to forgetfulness and on the surface of life, embroidering its words and its charming magic, full of contradictions and madness. A large area of imagination and passion is given to you by the first lines, and it deliberately captivates the reader's imagination to go very far away, where there is nothing but that group of heroes, walled cities, and curved ships that carry on their backs that huge number of warriors seeking glory, those ships sailing in the fog of the sea and the eternal sunset scenes.
And how hard was the heart of Achilles then, when he was far away in the right of his comrades there and left them, the swift-footed, while they were being killed by Hector, the son of Priam, and the rest of the Trojans. The cries of the wise Nestor filled the battlefield, calling for woe on those who would retreat from the battle and reminding them of glory at all times. Agamemnon was in a state of anger and mourning as he watched the troops of the Trojans advancing towards the ships of his comrades, threatening to burn the ships themselves. Odysseus, the darling of the gods, was killing the souls of the Trojans with his arrows that still pierced the Trojan bodies. The twins Ajax were praying to the gods not to give victory to the Trojans. And the spears of the Achaeans still deviated from their course by the will of "Zeus", who did not disdain the sacrifices that Agamemnon and before him Nestor had offered, nor the bulls that were sacrificed to this harsh god who enabled the Trojans to win in many rounds until Agamemnon almost announced the withdrawal towards the ships for fear of the burning of the curved ships and falling into the hands of their enemies. If not for the awakening of the twins Ajax, who rushed to defend the ships and protect the last of the morale of the Achaeans who were concentrated by the ships, the turning point occurred when Patroclus urged Achilles to fight and reminded him of the fate of the Greeks that would be in the hands of the rebels from the people of Troy and behind some of the gods who wanted to crush the Greek army. Patroclus tried to calm the anger of Achilles, but that wretch could do nothing but borrow the armor of Achilles and face the troops of the Trojans alone.
And Achilles knew there for the first time the meaning of pain, the meaning of anger, the meaning of destruction, the meaning of nothingness, the meaning of loss, the meaning of losing everything for nothing. The meaning of being despised even by himself, of being sure that you have seen the sorrows of the world in your heart, the answer to the seeds of the hidden truth that calls you to the perishing world. It was not anger but hidden grief, as if he knew that the days were hiding from him while he was on the land of Troy. Achilles was torn there and torn with what was around him.
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This epic, I can say, is one of the most beautiful things I have read and will read. It is a wonderful literary gift that tells those events in a charming, enchanting, and unforgettable way, as if it was taken from the well of beauty hidden in the magic of this whole world. This epic remains amazing in my imagination, difficult to forget and rewrite again.... An automatic, strange, enchanting, and brilliant emotional response. It is not a dream but a reality, a drop of still water from the sea of the beauty of this wonderful humanity.
And I realized completely that if the representatives and artists of the world gathered to embody this epic in reality or on a stage or whatever means they could,
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It should be noted that the number of characters in the epic is very, very large and cannot be counted. Many names of warriors, gods, and heroes come as peripheral characters with no weight in the process of building the epic. They are just a piece of paper that Homer throws in the cry of war, either to be directly killed after being mentioned, which often happens, or to be forgotten by Homer. As the critics said, "Homer sometimes forgot during the writing of the epic." And it is worth mentioning that there is a character who was killed at the beginning of the wars that broke out between the Trojans and the Danaans and then was mentioned again as he was fighting a second time in the cry of war, and unfortunately, he was killed again. That, in my opinion, adds a kind of innocence and strangeness to the story, as if it is taking place outside the bounds of time. And my advice is to remember only the names of the main characters in the epic, otherwise, the characters will be confused for you and you will feel a kind of boredom towards the book. Always follow and don't worry, the beauty of the epic is in its continuity and following the madness and states of inspiration of Homer.
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It is enough to say that the translation that I read has no words to describe the degree of its coherence, beauty, and literary creativity, and the excellent taste in the choice of words and sentences and the true depth in the translation. The translator, Ahmed Atta, along with a number of other translators, spent many years to produce this wonderful, delicate work, one of the most beautiful translations I have read. He deserves praise, appreciation, and thanks for this great effort, which is indeed a gift that can only be valued by those with true taste in literature.
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This is not a review that I wrote, but just some thoughts about the book that I wanted to add here.

The Iliad is a remarkable work that delves deep into the nature of force and its impact on human lives. It was likely composed between the late 8th and early 7th centuries BC and has endured through oral tradition and hand-copying for about 2200 years. The long, epic titles and repeated epithets are hallmarks of oral epic poetry, serving as a mechanism for the poet to improvise. The poem is filled with war, blood, and gore, but also has moments of absurdity and non-sensical events. It contrasts the reality of war with its glorification, leading us to question the role of the Gods and the free will of supposed heroes. Hector is a prime example of this, as his bravery is ultimately shown to be instilled by the Gods. The "Friends/Lovers" controversy regarding Achilles and Patroclus is also a topic of debate, with some interpretations suggesting a romantic relationship and others not. Overall, The Iliad is a seminal classic that offers much to ponder and enjoy.

”The true hero, the true subject, the center of the Iliad, is force. Force as man’s instrument, force as man’s master, force before which human flesh shrinks back. The human soul, in this poem, is shown always in its relation to force.” - Simone Weil (L’Iliade ou le poème de la Force)

***SPOILERS AHEAD*** (If it's possible to spoil arguably the best-known story in history, 3000 years after its creation... You can never be too careful)

Hear me, fellow bookworms! The Iliad is a cornerstone of Greek Mythology that has fascinated readers for centuries. It was composed around 725-675 BC and the first printed version dates back to 1488. Bernard Knox, in Robert Fagle’s translation, explores interesting historical questions about the text. New readers may notice the long, epic titles at the introduction of important characters, which are a characteristic of oral epic poetry. The poem is filled with war, but also has moments of absurdity, such as when Aeneas and Achilles stop in the middle of the battlefield for a chat. It also contrasts the reality of war with its glorification, making us question the role of the Gods and the free will of heroes. Hector's story is a prime example of this. The "Friends/Lovers" controversy regarding Achilles and Patroclus is an interesting topic, with different interpretations possible. In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Iliad and look forward to exploring more of Homer's works in 2022. Happy reading!

\\n  ”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.” \\n