![]() ![]() He sat himself down away from the ships with a face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang death as he shot his arrow in the midst of them. He came down furious from the summits of Olympus, with his bow and his quiver upon his shoulder, and the arrows rattled on his back with the rage that trembled within him. Thus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. If I have ever decked your temple with garlands, or burned your thigh-bones in fat of bulls or goats, grant my prayer, and let your arrows avenge these my tears upon the Danaans.” “Hear me,” he cried, “O god of the silver bow, that protectest Chryse and holy Cilla and rulest Tenedos with thy might, hear me oh thou of Sminthe. Not a word he spoke, but went by the shore of the sounding sea and prayed apart to King Apollo whom lovely Leto had borne. She shall grow old in my house at Argos far from her own home, busying herself with her loom and visiting my couch so go, and do not provoke me or it shall be the worse for you.” Your sceptre of the god and your wreath shall profit you nothing. “Old man,” said he, “let me not find you tarrying about our ships, nor yet coming hereafter. On this the rest of the Achaeans with one voice were for respecting the priest and taking the ransom that he offered but not so Agamemnon, who spoke fiercely to him and sent him roughly away. “Sons of Atreus,” he cried, “and all other Achaeans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove.” Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant’s wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.Īnd which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus,that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. What has never been controversial is Homer’s popularity, from his own time to the present day. That criticism should remind us that Homer composed a literary version of events, rather than a strictly accurate view of his culture. Homer’s version was also controversial Greek writers such as Xenophanes criticized Homer for his impious depiction of the gods, who appear at times brutal, at times humorous. When Dante tries to describe the interior of Hell, he is imitating Virgil imitating Homer: familiar ways of seeing unfamiliar things. Homer was not the first or the last to write about the Trojan War and its aftermath, but his version was the most famous, in part for his vivid descriptions (which would be imitated by other authors, including Virgil in his Aeneid, for centuries to come) For an audience that might not have witnessed a battle, Homer appeals to their senses through familiar sights and sounds men hacking at each other with bronze weapons sound like a forest full of woodcutters hacking at trees. Homer’s grasp of Mediterranean geography is strong, as is evident when he traces the wandering route that Odysseus takes to return home to Ithaca after the war. The Iliad encompasses a few weeks in the tenth year of the Trojan War, focusing on one episode in the life of the Greek warrior Achilles, while the Odyssey explains why Odysseus spends twelve long years trying to go home. ![]() If so, his balanced depiction of the Greeks and the Trojans in the Iliad is noteworthy, since he would be a descendant of those Greeks who invaded the area approximately 400 years earlier, when the historical Troy was attacked and burned in around 1200 B.C.E. It is possible that he was a Greek who lived on the coast of what is now Turkey, not far from the location of Troy. ![]() We know almost nothing about Homer scholars debate whether one or more authors composed the epic poems attributed to him. ![]()
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