The Iliad

by Homer

The beautiful word minunthadios, “short-lived,” is used of both Achilles and Hector, and applies to all of us. We die too soon, and there is no adequate recompense for the terrible, inevitable loss of life.

Epic poems describe the famous deeds of men (klea andrōn). But The Iliad is a strange kind of action story, in which feelings—fear, joy, lust, aggression, love, rage, sorrow—often seem to matter more than external behaviors. The first word in the Greek original, mēnin (from mēnis, “wrath”) denotes Achilles’ deadly and superhuman rage; the term is usually applied to the anger of gods. The Iliad ends with a different and fully human emotion: the desperate grief of mortal women over the death of Hector, the imminent fall of Troy, and the end of their freedom.

“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. . . .” (18.135–39) The imagery suggests a parallel between anger and the myth of the Wooden Horse: it is welcomed in, like a gift, but insidiously becomes destructive to the enraged person himself as well as those around him.

Thetis in tears replied, “My boy, my child, why did I birth you for such suffering? Why did I mother you, take care of you? I wish you could sit quietly by your ships, 550 and never have to suffer tears or trouble, because it is your destiny to live so very short a time, not long at all. But even as your death runs fast behind you you are the most unhappy man alive. A curse attended at your birth. I shall go to Olympus where the snow lies deep 420 and talk to Zeus, who loves the thunderbolt. I hope I can persuade him. And meanwhile, sit by your ships and rage against the Greeks, 560 and stay entirely away from war.