The Iliad

by Homer

The human soul, in this poem, is shown always in its relation to force: swept away, blinded by the force it thinks it can direct, bent under the pressure of the force to which it is subjected.

Troy will not be saved by the magnanimity and tender-heartedness of Priam nor by Paris’ brilliance in the courts of love. If it is to survive it will do so because of the devotion, courage and incessant efforts of one man, Priam’s son Hector. On him falls the whole burden of the war.

This violence is Achilles’ native element: only in violence are his full powers exerted, his talents fully employed.

The natural consequence of that choice is a fierce devotion to the glory which he has preferred to a long life;

For the honor of Achilles is more important than that of other men; he has already chosen an early death for honor’s sake.

the stern lesson of Homer’s presentation of the war: that no civilization, no matter how rich, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force.

Troy will fall now, but so someday will the cities of its conquerors.

The gods are immortal; they are not subject to time. They have all the time in the world. And so they are not subject to change, to the change brought by age, to the change brought by learning from suffering and a realization of limitations. They will always be what they are now and have always been;

To be a god is to be totally absorbed in the exercise of one’s own power, the fulfillment of one’s own nature, unchecked by any thought of others except as obstacles to be overcome; it is to be incapable of self-questioning or self-criticism.

The heroes are godlike in their passionate self-esteem.

Human suffering counts for nothing in the settlement of divine differences. The gods feel no responsibility for the human victims of their private wars.

Achilles is no Ajax; he is hardly even human: he is godlike, both greater and lesser than a man.

You—I hate you most of all the warlords loved by the gods. Always dear to your heart, strife, yes, and battles, the bloody grind of war. What if you are a great soldier? That’s just a gift of god.

I don’t blame you. I hold the gods to blame. They are the ones who brought this war upon me,