Catalogue

Homer

The Iliad

Ἰλιάς · c. 750 BC

The Iliad does not tell the story of the Trojan War. It tells of a few weeks in its tenth year, of a quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, and of what that quarrel costs. It is the oldest work of Western literature and still among the least consoling: a poem in which glory and grief are never separated, and in which the enemy is given the same dignity as the hero.

Composed for performance and fixed in writing over centuries, the poem was the foundation of Greek education for a thousand years. Its last book, in which Priam comes by night to ask Achilles for the body of his son, remains one of the great scenes in any literature.

The edition

Language

English

Translation

Translated from the Greek by François Dante

Contents

Preface · About the author · Complete text · Summary · Analysis

Formats

Paperback · Ebook

Cover

Peter Paul Rubens, Achilles Defeating Hector, c. 1630–1635