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Epic & Didactic · Homer

Iliad

Homer, c. 8th century BCE (as conventionally dated) — in Greek.

The older of the two Homeric epics — the wrath (mēnis, μῆνις) of Achilles and its cost, told across a few days in the tenth year of the war at Troy.

The words most alive here

If a word rides through a thousand years mostly in war-poems and cavalry manuals, is the horse it names ever quite an ordinary animal?

By how often they stand in this work, the commonest particles set aside. Each opens onto its own word.

Read from it

  • μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

    Iliad 1.1

  • νοῦσον ἀνὰ στρατὸν ὄρσε κακήν, ὀλέκοντο δὲ λαοί,

    Iliad 1.10

  • ἐς Χρύσην· τότε κέν μιν ἱλασσάμενοι πεπίθοιμεν.

    Iliad 1.100

  • ἤτοι ὅ γʼ ὣς εἰπὼν κατʼ ἄρʼ ἕζετο· τοῖσι δʼ ἀνέστη

    Iliad 1.101

  • ἥρως Ἀτρεΐδης εὐρὺ κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων

    Iliad 1.102

  • ἀχνύμενος· μένεος δὲ μέγα φρένες ἀμφιμέλαιναι

    Iliad 1.103

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