I bought both the Kindle and Audible versions so I could read where possible and listen in the car to stay caught up. The audio version was a lot more compelling and easier to get into.
The reviews are right: the translation is modern and easy to read compared to others. It doesn’t feel like reading ancient prose.
On the Iliad itself: it was hard to appreciate as a layperson. I’ll lean more heavily on guides or textbooks the next time I read something this unfamiliar.
See also:
Highlights and Notes
Another traditional narrative technique prominent in The Iliad is the use of lists or catalogs. To a reader accustomed to the norms of modern prose, these passages may look off-putting on the page. Read them out loud: in mouth and ear, the long lists of names become music.
But do not blame me for the lovely gifts of golden Aphrodite.
“Now listen to me also. My heart is suffering from dreadful grief. I think the Greeks and Trojans must disperse. You have already suffered too much harm 100 from my dispute with Paris, which he started.
All these men 150 were now too old for war, but good in council, just as cicadas settle in the trees and fill the woods with sound as sweet as lilies.
Athena stood near him and spoke winged words. “Trust me in this, great fighter Pandarus, Lycaon’s son. 120 Have courage—quickly shoot at Menelaus! Then all the Trojans will admire and thank you, especially Lord Paris Alexander. Certainly he will give you splendid gifts as soon as he sees warlike Menelaus, the son of Atreus, killed by your arrow, and laid out on his funeral pyre. Go on, 100 shoot with your bow at glorious Menelaus, and vow to give the god of archery, wolf-born Apollo, a fine hecatomb 130 of newborn lambs, when you are home again, back in the holy city of Zelea.” So spoke Athena, and her words persuaded the mindless mind of Pandarus.
I have no horses and no chariots, although at home my father has eleven, beautiful ones, new made and newly fashioned, 260 covered in cloths. To each is yoked two horses, feeding on spelt and bright white barley grains.
Diomedes, the son of Tydeus, picked up a boulder 400 that was so large two men, as men are now, could never lift it up—a massive task.
as he backed away, Meriones pursued, and struck him with his spear and pierced 750 his navel, piercing through his genitals— the worst affliction that the war god gives to poor, unhappy mortals.
you wicked she-dogs!
You stole my lawful wife away from me,
like a snowy mountain, he strode off,
Dreadful Ares, the god of mayhem, entered him and filled his limbs with strength and courage.
In body and in tireless voice the goddess resembled Phoenix as she said to him, 710 “It will be shameful and dishonorable for you, great Menelaus, if you let the swift dogs drag Achilles’ loyal comrade beneath the walls of Troy. Be strong. Hold firm. Encourage all the troops to do the same.” 560 Then Menelaus, master of the war cry, answered her, “Phoenix, father, grandpa, papa, I pray Athena gives me strength and guards me from flying weapons. I would like to stand beside Patroclus and take care of him. 720 His death has touched my heart. But Hector has the force of fearsome fire, and his bronze spear slaughters unceasingly, because great Zeus is granting him success.” At this, Athena, the goddess with the sparkling eyes, was pleased, because he named her first of all the gods. 570 She made his arms and legs more powerful, and set in him the courage of a fly, who works so hard and so persistently, yearning to bite a human being’s flesh 730 because she loves the taste of human blood. This was the boldness that the goddess put inside the inmost heart of Menelaus, and then he stood above the dead Patroclus and threw his shining spear. Among the Trojans
Even the wisest people are roused to rage, which trickles into you sweeter than honey, and inside your body 110 it swells like smoke—
But in the meantime, go up to the trench and show yourself to terrify the Trojans, so they will give some ground, draw back from battle, 200 and grant the warlike Greeks some space to breathe. The fighters are exhausted from the fighting. Respite in war is only ever brief.” 250 With this, swift-footed Iris flew away. Up rose Achilles, dear to Zeus. Athena, the glorious goddess, wrapped round his strong shoulders a tasseled aegis. And she crowned his head with golden mist and made bright flame flash from him. As when smoke rises up into the sky from some far distant city on an island besieged by enemies—the townsmen fight all day beneath the hateful gaze of Ares— 210 at sunset, they keep lighting beacon fires, 260 to make the brightness visible on high to neighbors who might sail to help their fight— just so the brightness on Achilles’ head reached to the sky. He left the wall but stopped before the trench, and did not join the Greeks. He heeded the instructions of his mother. Pallas Athena hovered over him and screamed. He stood and shouted to the Trojans, and roused in them an overwhelming panic.
Athena took their wits away.
Deadly Delusion ruins and deludes all men. She is the eldest child of Zeus. Her feet are soft—she never walks on earth. She passes through the minds of human beings and damages them all, and puts in shackles one man in two.
while Aeneas picked up a boulder—one that would have been too heavy for two men of modern times, and yet he brandished it with ease alone.
Hector drew back amid his crowd of comrades, 380 startled to hear a god addressing him.
his heart intent on ruin, like a god.
“Get up, my little twisty-foot, my son!
She left him, took on the body and the tireless voice of great Deiphobus, and went to Hector, and stood beside him and spoke words on wings. “Dear brother, you are certainly hard-pressed by swift Achilles. He is chasing you 230 on such quick feet around the town of Priam. But come on, let us stand together here and wait for him and ward him off together.” And mighty Hector in his flashing helmet 310 replied, “Deiphobus, you always were the brother that I loved the most by far, of all the sons of Hecuba and Priam. But now your worth to me is even higher, because you dared to come outside the wall when you saw me out here, although the others are still inside.” And then the bright-eyed goddess, Athena, spoke to him a second time. “Dear brother, certainly our parents begged me to stay. Our noble mother and our father 240 320 took turns imploring me, as did our comrades. All of them were so terribly afraid. But my heart deep inside me was afflicted by terrible anxiety for you. So let us rush to battle, spare no spear, and find out if Achilles will destroy us, and strip our bloodstained armor and our weapons and take them to the hollow ships with him, or if your spear may conquer him.”
“I shall no longer run from you, Achilles, in fear, as I have done three times already, around the great and splendid town of Priam. I did not dare stand still and wait for you. But now my spirit urges me to stand and face you.
“Ajax, you are excellent at quarreling, but terrible at thinking,
He looked like a young man, a magistrate, with beard first sprouting, the most handsome age.
appearing like a god.