This time around I was struck by Knox's astute observation (in his introduction to this Fagle's Penguin) on the nature of demigods. Achilles and Helen, he argues, behave much like their immortal parents. They are one-sided and almost primal in their force of personality. Neither has any qualms or remorse or really any consideration for the consequences of his actions. Achilles is not only the consummate warrior, but is, on some level, the essence of the Greek warrior. Likewise Helen is not just lovely, she is the force of love. Slowly through the text we see the humanization of both. Helen feels remorse for the war her actions caused, a remorse she had not demonstrated before. Achilles calms down enough to give Hector's body to Priam. He can, it turns out, be touched. This transformation is in part the subject of the poem. Achilles' rage eventually subsides as he becomes more human and less divine.

It is amazing to me how many abuse Achilles for returning to the field after Patroclus' death. "Briseis no longer matters?" my students ask. "Achilles just drops it after all that bloodshed?" What they miss is that Achilles' dishonor at Agamemnon's hands is not the subject of the poem: the rage is. Achilles is full of rage as the demigod of war, a semi-mortal Ares. The object of the rage hardly matters. It switches from Agamemnon and his injustice to Hector quickly enough--and Achilles dismisses Agamemnon's half-apologies as entirely irrelevant in his towering fury. Agamemnon is nothing to him. That lack of compassion is another of Knox's attributes of the semidivine and it abates only after Hector's demise.

What a great poem. Formative in Western literature, still insightful and relevant almost 3000 years later, and beautifully (if a little freely) rendered by Fagles. Knox's introduction makes this worth the $12 even if you adore Lattimore.