My very best experience with the Iliad. In fact, one of my best audio book experiences. I highly recommend this version translated by Robert Fagles and narrated by Derek Jacobi.

The Iliad was originally recited, performed orally for an audience rather than being read individually. Homer, man or group, is credited with writing it down, but it continued to be recited. I find that this is still the way to enjoy it.

From the Publisher

This set, translated by Robert Fagles, includes an abridged Iliad on six audio cassettes (nine hours) accompanied by a nine page booklet. The text is read by Derek Jacobi.

About the Author

Translator ROBERT FAGLE is chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at Princeton University.

''Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but first, let me do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter."
Hektor of Troy

Imagine a cold winter evening, a glass of wine, and the voice of famous Shakespearean actor Derek Jacobi, reading from Robert Fagles's finely crafted translation of the Iliad aloud in your living room. For half an hour or more each night, you can forget about omicron and escape into the poetry of a grand epic.

It's been over ten years since I last read the Iliad in the original; however, I enjoyed it more this time. Although my husband and I followed along, book in hands, we realized that Homer needed to be heard. The Iliad is an oral performance, and at times I would close my eyes and listen. A lecture series that we took simultaneously enhanced our enjoyment.

The Iliad is an epic classic. But, unfortunately, I can't do it justice in a summary or critique. However, I found listening to an outstanding performance profoundly moving. The poetry, characters, and conflicts have a timeless quality that goes to the heart of what it means to be human.

as a native english speaker, im not exposed to translated books very often; so this reread is the first time where i have truly comprehended the significance of a translation and how it can either make or break a story.

i first read parts of ‘the iliad’ back when i was in school and i just remember the text being very stiff and formal. it did not hold my attention at all because i couldnt understand it. but as i have come to love this story over the years (through retellings and other media), i decided to give this another try. after a lot of research, i chose this edition and translation, and i cannot stress enough how it has made all the difference.

the epic of ‘the iliad’ has its roots in oral storytelling and i am so impressed at how the flow of the language in this feels like someone is sitting next to me, personally telling me a tale about the best of greeks and their plight against the trojans. its a really neat feeling to experience such an authentic nod to homer and how he told this story, almost to the point where i feel as if i have been a part of this epics great history.

↠ 5 stars

Pablo Picasso spent his entire life trying desperately to do something new, something unique. He moved from style to style, mastering and then abandoning both modern and classical methods, even trying to teach his trained artist's hand to paint like a child.

In 1940, four French teens and a dog stumbled upon a cave that had lain hidden for 16,000 years. Inside, they found the walls covered in beautiful drawings of men and animals. When the Lascaux caves were opened to the public, Pablo Picasso visited them, and as he stared at the prehistoric hunting scenes, was heard to remark in a despondent tone: "We have invented nothing".

The Iliad is equally as humbling to a writer, as complex, beautiful, and honest as any other work. The war scenes play out like a modern film, gory and fast-paced, the ever-present shock of death. Though some have been annoyed at how each man is named (or even given a past) before his death, this gives weight to the action. Each death is has consequence, and as each man steps onto the stage to meet glory or death, Homer gives us a moment to recognize him, to see him amidst the whirling action, and to witness the fate Zeus metes.

The psychological complexity and humanism of this work often shocked me. Homer's depiction of human beings as fundamentally flawed and unable to direct their own lives predicts existentialism. The even hand he gives both the Trojans and the Argives places his work above the later moralizing allegories of Turold, Tasso, or even Milton.

Of course, Homer's is a different world than theirs, one where the sword has not yet become a symbol for righteousness. In Homer, good men die unavenged, and bad men make their way up in the world. Noble empires fall to ravenous fire and the corpses of fresh-limbed young men are desecrated.

Fate does not favor the kind, the weak, the moral, or even the strong. Fate favors some men now, others later, and in the end, none escapes the emptiness of death. Though Homer paints some men as great, as noble and kind and brave, these men do not uphold these ideals for some promised paradise, but simply because they are such men.

There is something refreshing in the purity of the philosophy of living life for yourself and yet expecting no entitlement for your deeds. A philosophy which accepts the uncontrollable winds of fate; that when the dark mist comes across our eyes, no man knows whence he goes.

Later traditions make other claims: that the righteous will be rewarded, that the lives of good men will be good and the bad will be punished. In thousands of years of thinking, of writing, of acting, have we gained nothing but comforting, untenable ideals? Then Picasso was wrong, we have invented something, but it is only a machine which perpetuates itself by peddling self-satisfaction.

I read and enjoyed the Fagles translation, which may not be the most faithful, but strikes that oft-discussed balance between joy of reading and fidelity. He makes no attempt to translate the meter into English, which is a blessing to us. The English language does a few meters well, and Homer's is not one of them.

The footnotes were competent and interesting, though I could have stood a few more of them; perhaps I am in the minority. I also thoroughly enjoyed Knox's introductory essay. I would normally have had to research the scholarly history of the book myself, and so Knox's catch-me-up was much appreciated.

"Did you really LIKE the Iliad, mum?"

My son has just finished reading it, and his question is valid. Do you really LIKE to read line after line of gory murder, repeated endlessly from song to song?

I evaded the question, speaking of fantastic opening lines, of classic art and immense influence on other authors. And then I capitulated - a little:

"The Odyssey is much more interesting as a story!" I said.

"So you didn't like it then?"

"I liked reading it!"

And we agreed that some books just ARE. As a reader, you will want to tackle them at some point, and the rules you apply to more recent works of fiction don't count. You award yourself 5 stars for finishing, for knowing more than you did before starting. But then my son killed the Iliad with a spear as sharp as those of Homeric warriors. He compared it to Greek tragedy. And that is where I stumbled: those ARE too - but I also LIKE reading them. They are thought-provoking, exciting, and classic. Troy's fall from the perspective of Philoctetes is pure literary bliss. The Iliad is not. But it remains...

This was a terribly hard read for me. I struggled to finish it, but finish it I did.

n  TROY VI: THE INVENTION OF ACHILLESn

“The Classics, it is the Classics!” William Blake is said to have exclaimed, with pointed reference to Homer, “that Desolate Europe with Wars!”

Blake's exclamation might not be as atrocious as it sounds at first. There might be some truth to this, a universal truth.

Significantly however, this is not how the ancients understood it. They understood war as the catastrophe that it is.

Strabo, the Roman geographer, talking about the Trojan wars, puts it thus: “For it came about that, on account of the length of the campaign, the Greeks of that time, and the barbarians as well, lost both what they had at home and what they had acquired by the campaign; and so, after the destruction of Troy, not only did the victors turn to piracy because of their poverty, the still more the vanquished who survived the war.”

It is in this spirit that I chose The Iliad as my first read for The World War I centenary read.

However, over the war-hungry centuries throughout the middle ages and right till the World Wars, this sense of the Epic was twisted by manipulating the images of Achilles & Hector - Hector became the great defender of his country and Achilles became the insubordinate soldier/officer - the worst ‘type’, more a cause for the war than even Helen herself. Of course, Achilles’ romance was never fully stripped but Hector gained in prominence throughout as the quintessential Patriot.

Precisely because of this the Blake exclamation might have been more valid than it had a right to be.

This is why there is a need to revisit the original tragic purpose of the Epic - most commentators would say that (as above) this original purpose was against ALL wars. But there is much significance to the fact that the epic celebrates the doomed fight of two extinct peoples.

The Iliad starts on the eve of war and ends on the eve of war. Of a ten year epic war, the poem focuses its attention only on a couple or so of crucial, and in the end inconclusive, weeks (for it does not end with any side victorious but with Hector’s death).

In fact, it opens with both both Hector & Achilles reluctant and extremely ambivalent towards war. And closes with both Hector & Achilles dead - by mutually assured destruction!

In that clash of the Titans, the epic defines itself and creates a lasting prophecy.

However, before we explore that we need to understand Hector & Achilles better and also the Iliad itself.

In Medias Res

The Iliad opens in medias res, as it were, as if the epic-recitation was already on its way and we, the audience, have just joined. It is part of Homer’s genius that he creates a world already in process. The art of Iliad is then the art of the entrance, the players enter from an ongoing world which is fully alive in the myths that surround the epic and the audience.

The poem describes neither the origins nor the end of the war. The epic cuts out only a small sliver of insignificant time of the great battle - and thus focuses the spotlight almost exclusively on Hector & Achilles, narrowing the scope of the poem from a larger conflict between warring peoples to a smaller one between these two individuals, and yet maintaining its cosmic aspirations. So the important question is who are Hector & Achilles and why do these two heroes demand nothing less than the greatest western epic to define and contrast them?

n  The Long Wait For Achillesn

In Iliad, how single-mindedly we are made to focus on Hector, but all the while, the Epic bursts with an absence - that of Achilles!

After the initial skirmish with Agamemnon and the withdrawal that forms the curtain-raiser, Achilles plays no part in the events described in Books 2 through 8; he sits by his ships on the shore, playing his harp, having his fun, waiting for the promised end.

“The man,” says Aristotle in the Politics, “who is incapable of working in common, or who in his self-sufficiency has no need of others, is no part of the community, like a beast, or a god.”

Hector is the most human among the heroes of The Iliad, he is the one we can relate with the most east. The scene where Hector meets Andromache and his infant son is one of the most poignant scenes of the epic and heightened by Homer for maximum dramatic tension.



On the other hand, Achilles is almost non-human, close to a god. But still human, though only through an aspiration that the audience might feel - in identifying with the quest for kleos, translated broadly as “honor”.

‘Zeus-like Achilles’ is the usage sometimes employed by Homer - and this is apt in more ways than the straight-forward fact that he is indeed first among the mortals just as Zeus is first among the gods.

Zeus and the Gods know the future, they know how things are going to unfold.

Among the mortals fighting it out in the plains of Ilium, only Achilles shares this knowledge, and this fore-knowledge is what allows him (in the guise of rage) to stay away from battle, even at the cost of eternal honor. Fore-knowledge is what makes Achilles (who is the most impetuous man alive) wiser than everyone else.

Hector on the other hand takes heed of no omens, or signs, nor consults any astrologer. For him, famously, the only sign required is that his city needed saving - “and that is omen enough for me”, as he declares. He is the rational man. He is the ordinary man. Roused to defense.

But everything Hector believes is false just as everything Achilles knows is true - for all his prowess, Hector is as ordinary a soldier as anyone else (except Achilles), privy to no prophecies, blind to his own fate. Elated, drunk with triumph, Hector allows himself to entertain one impossible dream/notion after other, even to the extent that perhaps Achilles too will fall to him. That he can save Troy all by himself.

Hector & Achilles: The Metamorphosis

Like other ancient epic poems, the Iliad presents its subject clearly from the outset. Indeed, Homer names his focus in its opening word: menin, or “rage.” Specifically, the Iliad concerns itself with the rage of Achilles—how it begins, how it cripples the Achaean army, and how it finally becomes redirected toward the Trojans. But, it also charts the metamorphosis of Achilles from a man who abhors a war that holds no meaning for him to a man who fights for its own sake.

On the other side, it also charts how the civilized Hector, the loving family man and dutiful patriot Hector becomes a savage, driven by the madness of war.

Before that, an interlude.

The Other Life Of Achilles

One of the defining scenes of the Epic is the ‘Embassy Scene’ where a defeated Agamemnon sends Odysseus & co to entreat Achilles to return to the battle. That is when Achilles delivers his famous anti-war speech. This speech of Achilles can be seen as a repudiation of the heroic ideal itself, of kleos - a realization that the life and death dedicated to glory is a game not worth the candle.

The reply is a long, passionate outburst; he pours out all the resentment stored up so long in his heart. He rejects out of hand this embassy and any other that may be sent; he wants to hear no more speeches. Not for Agamemnon nor for the Achaeans either will he fight again. He is going home, with all his men and ships. As for Agamemnon's gifts, “I loathe his gifts!“

This is a crucial point in the epic. Achilles is a killer, the personification of martial violence, but he eulogizes not war but life - “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 . . . “  (9.502-4)

n  Hector & Achilles: The Battle Royalen

Notwithstanding Achilles’ reluctance and bold affirmations of life, slowly, inevitably, Homer builds the tension and guides us towards the epic clash everybody is waiting for. But though it might seem as preordained, it is useful to question it closely. The confrontation is crucial and deserves very close scrutiny. We must ask ourselves - What brings on this confrontation?

On first glance, it was fate, but if looked at again, we can see that Homer leaves plenty of room for free-will and human agency - Hector had a choice. But not Achilles - instead, Achilles' choice was exercised by Patroclus.

This calls for a significant re-look at the central conflict of the epic: it might not be Hector Vs Achilles!

Patroclus and Hector instead are the real centerpiece of the epic - Achilles being the irresistible force, that is once unleashed unstoppable. It is a no-contest. Hence, the real contest happens before.

This is because, that unleashing depended entirely on Hector and Patroclus - the two heroes who only went into battle when their side was in dire straits - to defend. Both then got caught up in the rage of battle, and despite the best of advice from their closest advisors, got swept up by it and tried to convert defense into annihilation of enemy - pursuing kleos!

It is worth noting the significant parallels between Hector and Patroclus, while between Hector and Achilles it is the contrasts that stand forth.

Hector, instead of just defending his city, surges forth and decides to burn the Achaean ships. Now, the Achaean ships symbolize the future of the Greek race. They constitute the army’s only means of conveying itself home, whether in triumph or defeat. Even if the Achaean army were to lose the war, the ships could bring back survivors; the ships’ destruction, however, would mean the annihilation—or automatic exile—of every last soldier. Homer implies that the mass death of these leaders and role models would have meant the decimation of a civilization.

Which means that the Achaeans cant escape - in effect, Hector, by trying to burn the ships is in effect calling for a fight to the death!

This decision was taken in the face of very strong omens and very good advice:

In the battle at the trench and rampart in Book Twelve, The Trojans Storm the Rampart, Polydamas sees an eagle flying with a snake, which it drops because the snake keeps attacking it; Polydamas decides this is an omen that the Trojans will lose. He tells Hector they must stop, but Hector lashes out that Zeus told him to charge; he accuses Polydamas of being a coward and warns him against trying to convince others to turn back or holding back himself.

Hector is driven on by his success to overstep the bounds clearly marked out for him by Zeus. He hears Polydamas’ threefold warning (yes, there were two other instances too, not addressed here), yet plots the path to his own death and the ruin of those whom he loves.

Thus, sadly, Hector pays no heed and surges forth. Which is the cue for the other patriot to enter the fray - for Patroclus.



And thus Hector’s own madness (going beyond success in defense) in the face of sound advice brought on a crises for Achaeans to which their prime defender and patriot, Patroclus responded - and then paralleling Hector’s own folly, he too succeeded and then went beyond that to his own death. Thus Patroclus too shows that knows no restraint in victory; his friends too warned him in vain, and he paid for it with his life. By this time Hector had no choice, his fate was already sealed. Achilles was about to be unleashed.

The most important moment in Iliad to me was this ‘prior-moment’ - when Hector lost it - when he lost himself to war fury: Hector’s first act of true savagery - towards Patroclus and his dead-body. “lost in folly, Athena had swept away their senses, “ is how Homer describes Hector and his troops at this point of their triumph.

Achilles, Unchained.

Yet, Homer gives Hector one more chance to spurn honor and save himself and diffuse/stall the mighty spirit of Achilles that had been unleashed on the battlegrounds. In his soliloquy before the Scacan gate, when he expects to die by Achilles' hand, he also has his first moment of insight: he sees that he has been wrong, and significantly enough Polydamas and his warnings come back to his mind. But he decides to hold his ground for fear of ridicule, of all things!

So even as all the other Trojans ran inside the impregnable city walls to shelter, Hector waited outside torn between life and honor (contrast this with Achilles who had chosen life over honor, the lyre over the spear, so effortlessly earlier). Hector instead waits until unnerved, until too late. And then the inevitable death comes.



Thus the Rage was unleashed by two men who tried to do more than defend themselves - they tried to win eternal honor or kleos - the result is the unleashing of the fire called Achilles (his rage) which burns itself and everything around it to the ground. What better invocation of what war means?

I ask again, what better book to read for the centenary year for The World War I?

The Last Book

The last words of The Iliad are : “And so the Trojans buried Hector, breaker of horses.”

Thus, fittingly, Homer starts with the Rage of Achilles and ends with the Death of Hector. This is very poetic and poignant, but it is time for more questions:

Again, why start and end on the eve of battle? Because that is the only space for reflection that war allows. Before the madness of the fury of war or of disaster descends like a miasmic cloud. To use Homer’s own phrase, “war gives little breathing-room”.

Thus, we end the Epic just as we began it - in stalemate, with one crucial difference - both sides’ best men are dead. The two men who could have effected a reconciliation , who had a vision beyond war, are dead.

n  Homer’s Propheciesn

It is made very clear in The Iliad that Achilles will die under Trojan roofs and that Hector will find his doom under the shadow of the Achaean ships - or, both are to die in enemy territory.

Though Iliad leaves us with full focus on Hector’s death and funeral, there is another death that was always presaged but left off from the story - That of Achilles’ own. Why?

Achilles' death is left to the audience to imagine, over and over again, in every context as required. The saga of Hector & Achilles, of the doomed-to-die heroes, leaves one death to the imagination and thus effects a very neat prophetic function.

Once Hector committed his folly, once Patroclus rushed to his death, and once Achilles is unleashed, the rest is fixed fate, there is no stopping it. So Homer begins and ends in truce, but with destruction round the corner - as if the cycle was meant to be repeated again and again, stretching backwards and forwards in time - Troy I, Troy II, … to Troy VI, Troy VII, … where does it end?

Homer knows that the threshold is crossed, the end is nigh - even Troy’s destruction is not required to be part of the epic - with Hector’s death, the death of Ilium is nigh too and so is Achilles’ own death and past the myths, the death of the Greek civilization, and maybe of all civilization?

The epic leaves us with the real doomsday just over the horizon, horribly presaged by it, in true prophetic fashion.

n  The Pity of Warn

The pity of war is The Iliad’s dominant theme, but it uses themes such as love, ego, honor, fear and friendship to illuminate the motive forces behind war. In another ancient epic, Gilgamesh, the death of a friend prompts a quest which ends in wisdom and an affirmation of life; in The Iliad, the death of the fabled friend leads to a renunciation of wisdom and a quest for death itself! In Gilgamesh, the hero learns the follies of life and rebuilds civilization; in The Iliad, Achilles comes into the epic already armed with this knowledge and moves towards seeking death, choosing to be the destroyer instead of the creator.

The Iliad is n  an epic of unlearning.n It mocks optimistic pretensions. In The Iliad, the participants learn nothing from their ordeal, all the learning is left to the audience.

هی نگه داشتم بیام مثلا ریویو خوب بنویسم دیدم تواناییش رو ندارم، بمونه بعد خوندن اودیسه.
این تجربه ایلیاد خوندنم با قبلی خیلی فرق داشت؛ با گروهی هم‌خوانی کردم که بسیار جذاب و عمیق کتاب می‌خونن و باعث شدند که مدل دیگه ای بخونم.
مرسی سعید که باعث شدی بیام برا هم‌خوانی.

راجع به ترجمه و ورژنی که خوندم و شنیدم بگم:
این سری ترجمه امیلی ویلسون رو خوندم و گوش دادم.
کتاب اولاش یه سری توضیحات کلی و خوب داره، اون وسط هم متن ترجمه شده‌است که برای سارای الان بسیار قابل فهم تر از ترجمه ی نفیسی برای سارای ده دوازده سال پیش بود، هم‌چنین قسمت آخر کتاب یه سری توضیحات اضافه برا هر سرود داشت.
قسمت آخر توی اودیوبوک نبود و وقتی داشتی متن رو گوش می‌دادی می‌تونستی ای‌بوک رو بذاری جلوت و باهاش پیش بری؛ دلیل اومدن یه سری عبارات و شرایط و چیزای مرتبط با قسمت هایی از متن رو توضیح داده بود که خوب بودند.

معرفی هایی که بچه ها از خدایگان و دوره زمانی و کتاب های مرتبط با ایلیاد کردند خیلی برام خوب بود(هرچند نرسیدم یه سری از فایل هایی که فرستادید رو گوش بدم.)

حین خوندنش یه سری نظراتم راجع به متن رو همینجا آوردم.

نتیجه گیری اخلاقیم از داستان این بود که به درگاه همه خدایان دعا کنی هیچوقت کاریت نداشته باشن، نه خوبتو بخوان نه بدتو نه هیچی! اصلا متوجه حضورت نباشن وگرنه به طریقی بدبخت میشی. محبوب این یکی باشی اون یکی حسادت می‌کنه بخواد حال یکی دیگه رو بگیره تورو اون وسط میندازه.
شما در نظر بگیر وسط جنگی که راه افتاده خدای خدایان به باقی خداها اینو بگه:

The dying human beings interest me.

I like to watch from here. The rest of you,
go there, among the Trojans and the Greeks,
and help whichever side you each prefer.

اون وسط کلی چیز کنارش راجع به ایلیاد خوندم؛ از کمیک های مرتبط گرفته تا مقالاتی راجع به برهه تاریخیش و مسائل اشاره شده درونش و... که اون وسط باعث شد با بانوگشسپ نامه هم آشنا بشم.

فکر نکنم چیزی ازش بشه گفت که اسپویل محسوب بشه، خود هومر هم با این پیش زمینه اصلا نوشته که همه می‌دونن چی میشه و حالا بذار پوئتیکش کنم، هی اون وسط مثلا فورشدو(اسپویل) می‌کنه آینده رو.

بخوام الان ازش کوئت هایی که برداشتم رو بیارم خیلی پخش و پرت و بی ربط میشن ولی یکم اون اولش از توضیحات راجع به وحشت جنگ برا زنان داشت:

The rape and abduction of an elite woman in peacetime, like the removal of Helen from her husband’s house in Sparta, is a terrible violation of social norms, because it threatens the male homeowner’s control over his own household, including its wealth, its social power, and the subordinate household members. Paris has done something not only ethically questionable, but also extremely imprudent. But in wartime, there are bad consequences for those who kidnap women only when a god’s desires or honor are violated—as with Chryseis, whose priestly father has a special relationship to Apollo.
The horrors of war for women and children were well-known to ancient storytellers and audiences, who would have included women and children. These horrors are implicit in The Iliad. But mortal women’s experiences are not as central in this epic as they were in other ancient Greek poetry, such as wedding songs, songs of lament, and, later, Athenian tragedy.

یه قسمتی بالا سر جنازه هکتور زنش داره به بچه‌ش میگه بدبخت شدیم و حالا برا طفل صغیر این تکه رو خیلی هارش و رک میگه:

And you, my child, will either come with me,
and do humiliating work, enslaved
to some harsh overlord, or else a Greek
will grab your arm and hurl you from the wall—
a dreadful death—in anger because Hector
had killed perhaps his brother, son, or father.

تو گیر و دار جنگ آکیلیس قهر کرده بود و پاتروکلوس هی خودشو می‌کشت پاشو برو جنگ با امثال این حرف ها:

But you, Achilles,
you have become impossible! I hope
the kind of anger you are fostering
never takes hold of me—you monstrous hero!
How can a person in the future learn
anything good from you, if you refuse
to save the Greeks from this catastrophe?
You have no pity. Peleus the horseman
was not your father, Thetis, not your mother.
Gray sea and soaring rocks gave birth to you,
and so you have an unrelenting heart.

که آکیلیس گوشش بدهکار نبود ولی بعدش که داشت غصه میخورد تازه عاقل شده بود و حرف های خوبی میزد:

If only conflict were eliminated
from gods and human beings! I wish anger
did not exist. Even the wisest people
are roused to rage, which trickles into you
sweeter than honey, and inside your body
it swells like smoke.

یه چیز جالبی که داشت با اینکه این‌همه خداها و بزرگاشون خرابکاری میکردند باز خیلی براشون احترام می‌ذاشتن، گویی که اشتباهاتشون هم مقدس و با اندیشه‌ست.
ولی خب خودشون به هم تیکه زیاد می‌اندازند ولی باز هم متن برمیگرده به تقدس و احترامشون.

Great father Zeus, will any mortals bother
to tell their plans and schemes to deathless gods
in any place across the boundless world?
Do you not see?

یه جا که اصلا زئوس خیلی دیگه مسخره میشه، میخواد مخ ها رو بزنه بعد میاد بهش از خوشی هاش با باقی زن ها میگه:

“You can go later on that journey, Hera,
but now let us enjoy some time in bed.
Let us make love. Such strong desire has never
suffused my senses or subdued my heart
for any goddess or for any woman
as I feel now for you. Not even when
I lusted for the wife of Ixion,
and got her pregnant with Pirithous,
a councillor as wise as any god.
Not even when I wanted Danae,
the daughter of Acrisius, a woman
with pretty ankles, and I got her pregnant
with Perseus, the best of warriors.
Not even when I lusted for the famous
Europa, child of Phoenix, and I fathered
Minos on her, and godlike Rhadamanthus.
Not even when I wanted Semele,
or when in Thebes I lusted for Alcmene,
who birthed heroic Heracles, my son—
and Semele gave birth to Dionysus,
the joy of mortals. And not even when
I lusted for the goddess, Queen Demeter,
who has such beautiful, well-braided hair—
not even when I wanted famous Leto,
not even when I wanted you yourself—
I never wanted anyone before
as much I want you right now. Such sweet
desire for you has taken hold of me.”

بعد اون وسط هرا نگران خاله زنک بازی بقیه خداهاست:

But what if one of the immortal gods
witnesses us up there in bed together,
and goes away and tells the other gods?

کلا خداهای جالبی بودن.

خلاصه که همین دیگه… تا تکه مرتبط با ایلیاد ویل دورانت رو کامل بخونم ببینم چیزی می‌خوام اضافه کنم یا نه.

Achilles - sexually ambiguous, rage-prone, has a sensitive tendon.

Patroclus - 'best friend' of Achilles. Ruined everything for everyone.

Odysseus - outsmarted the Trojans, had sex with a witch and a nymph.

Agamemnon - worst husband, worst father, worst Greek, worst human.

Menelaus - lost his wife, literally.

Helen - the face that launched a thousand memes. Has the worst taste in men.

Paris - the biggest fuckboy in Greek mythology. I don't condone child abuse, but I can see why his parents wanted to kill him when he was a baby.

Hector - the perfect son, husband, father, brother, and prince. Tames horses in his spare time.

Andromache - the perfect wife, mother, and princess. The Kate Middleton of Greek mythology.

King Priam - had a hundred children. He's lucky child support didn't exist in ancient times.

Queen Hecuba - had nineteen children and a horny husband.

Briseis - in need of therapy.

Ajax the great - the OG alpha male macho man dude-bro.

Ajax the lesser - I guess he was a beta male?

Hera - to quote Lizzo, it's bad bitch o'clock.

Athena - it's ok to be a virgin. It's even better to be a virgin goddess of wisdom, warfare, and handicraft. I support Athena's war crimes.

Ares - cute but psycho.

Aphrodite - the OG Regina George.

The Myrmidons - The Greek mythology equivalent of Navy Seals

Aeneas - just kind of there.

Thetis - Achilles' sea nymph mommy

Poseidon - petty, vengeful, likes to play with dolphins in his free time (this has never been scientifically proven, it's just a theory)

Hephaestus - got cheated on by Aphrodite and tried to assault Athena, and for that, he will forever be on my shit list.

Hermes - in charge of Mount Olympus' post office.

Artemis - a cool virgin who likes to hunt.

Apollo - doesn't know the meaning of consent.

Zeus - doesn't know the meaning of consent.

Should I review the Odyssey? Was Odysseus the victim of a curse, or did he just not want to go home to his wife? 'Lost at sea' is the Greek mythology equivalent of 'going out for cigarettes.'

Greek mythology is unhinged, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I have a confession to make: I love the movie Troy. Critics make fun of it. Historians treat it like a redheaded stepchild. I don't care. I love it. My opinion has nothing to do with a skirt-clad Brad Pitt.

In the ninth year of the Trojan War, Greek victories have led to Agamemnon taking Chryseis and Achilles taking Briseis. Following Chryseis' father's prayers to Apollo, a pestilence afflicts the Greeks. Agamemnon releases Chryseis but demands Briseis, which sullies Achilles' honour. Achilles is ropeable and refuses to fight. With capricious gods supporting both sides, the Trojans drive the Greeks back. Petroclus--Achilles' lover--is killed by Hector. This ignites Achilles' rage. He returns and kills Hector yet keeps the body for the dogs. Priam--Hector's father and King of Troy--begs Achilles for Hector's return. Recognising Priam's humanity, Achilles relents.

This is a hyper-masculine story. The Trojan War is underpinned by Helen of Sparta being taken to Troy by Paris. This sparks conflict as men on each side view her as their property. Agamemnon and Achilles' feud also arose from their possessiveness over captured women. For time immemorial, women have been seen as 'spoils of war'. It was only in 2008 when the United Nations Security Council recognised sexual violence as a war crime. Modern veneration of this ancient story somewhat downplays ongoing male sexual violence towards women in warfare. This enduring reality is presently exemplified by Russians using sexual violence as a weapon of war in Ukraine.

This tale prominently features graphic battle scenes, including descriptions of mushed brains and eviscerations. This grows tiresome over 700 pages. However, a poignant moment unfolds in Book 24 when Priam seeks the return of Hector's body. Achilles is a selfish demi-god that glories in the slaughter of his enemies. However, he briefly sheds his callous façade when viewing the bond of a mortal father and son. This scene exposes war's futility and its destructiveness. While Patroclus was avenged, Achilles remains distraught, and the Trojans are left in despair. Furthermore, this choice seals Achilles' fate for a future demise at the hands of Paris. Even in victory, war remains pyrrhic to the soul.

Konačan review: naučih da koristim re-read opciju na časnom Gudridsu, pa sada sa uživanjem mogu da kažem - pročitala sam najzad celu Ilijadu kako treba, bez potpomaganja prepričanom verzijom, što je bio slučaj u školi, kada je ova knjiga bila na programu za lektiru. I iskreno, ako mi neko kaže da je stigao sve ovo da pročita za lektiru kao 15-togodišnjak koji ima još lektira + učenje ostalog gradiva, laže i ništa mu ne verujem i neka se uvredi ako želi, couldn't care less.

..............................................................................................

Neka za večni svedok ostane pisani trag,
Da koristit' časni Gudrids ne znam tupava,
Niti podesit' datum re-reada knjige ove,
O plavokosom vojskomori Ahilu Bredu Pitu.