Iliad Quotes

“And overpowered by memory
Both men gave way to grief. Priam wept freely
For man - killing Hector, throbbing, crouching
Before Achilles' feet as Achilles wept himself,
Now for his father, now for Patroclus once again
And their sobbing rose and fell throughout the house.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes?”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“Homer, in the second book of the Iliad says with fine enthusiasm, "Give me masturbation or give me death." Caesar, in his Commentaries, says, "To the lonely it is company; to the forsaken it is a friend; to the aged and to the impotent it is a benefactor. They that are penniless are yet rich, in that they still have this majestic diversion." In another place this experienced observer has said, "There are times when I prefer it to sodomy." Robinson Crusoe says, "I cannot describe what I owe to this gentle art." Queen Elizabeth said, "It is the bulwark of virginity." Cetewayo, the Zulu hero, remarked, "A jerk in the hand is worth two in the bush." The immortal Franklin has said, "Masturbation is the best policy." Michelangelo and all of the other old masters--"old masters," I will remark, is an abbreviation, a contraction--have used similar language. Michelangelo said to Pope Julius II, "Self-negation is noble, self-culture beneficent, self-possession is manly, but to the truly great and inspiring soul they are poor and tame compared with self-abuse." Mr. Brown, here, in one of his latest and most graceful poems, refers to it in an eloquent line which is destined to live to the end of time--"None knows it but to love it; none name it but to praise.”
― Mark Twain, On Masturbation

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story”
― Robert Fitzgerald

“Hektor, argue me no agreements. I cannot forgive you.
As there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions,
nor wolves and lambs have spirit that can be brought to agreement
but forever these hold feelings of hate for each other,
so there can be no love between you and me, nor shall there be
oaths between us, but one or the other must fall before then
to glut with his blood Ares the god who fights under the shield's guard.”
― Homer

“so evenly was strained their war and battle,
till the moment when Zeus gave the greater renown to Hector, son of
Priam, who was the first to leap within the wall of the Achaians. In a
piercing voice he cried aloud to the Trojans: "Rise, ye horse-taming
Trojans, break the wall of the Argives, and cast among the ships fierce
blazing fire."

So spake he, spurring them on, and they all heard him with their ears,
and in one mass rushed straight against the wall, and with sharp spears
in their hands climbed upon the machicolations of the towers. And
Hector seized and carried a stone that lay in front of the gates, thick
in the hinder part, but sharp at point: a stone that not the two best
men of the people, such as mortals now are, could lightly lift from the
ground on to a wain, but easily he wielded it alone, for the son of
crooked-counselling Kronos made it light for him. And as when a shepherd
lightly beareth the fleece of a ram, taking it in one hand, and little
doth it burden him, so Hector lifted the stone, and bare it straight
against the doors that closely guarded the stubborn-set portals, double
gates and tall, and two cross bars held them within, and one bolt
fastened them. And he came, and stood hard by, and firmly planted
himself, and smote them in the midst, setting his legs well apart, that
his cast might lack no strength. And he brake both the hinges, and the
stone fell within by reason of its weight, and the gates rang loud
around, and the bars held not, and the doors burst this way and that
beneath the rush of the stone. Then glorious Hector leaped in, with face
like the sudden night, shining in wondrous mail that was clad about his
body, and with two spears in his hands. No man that met him could have
held him back when once he leaped within the gates: none but the gods,
and his eyes shone with fire. Turning towards the throng he cried to the
Trojans to overleap the wall, and they obeyed his summons, and speedily
some overleaped the wall, and some poured into the fair-wrought
gateways, and the Danaans fled in fear among the hollow ships, and a
ceaseless clamour arose.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Fate is the same for the man who holds back, the same if he fights hard.
We are all held in a single honour, the brave with the weaklings.
A man dies still if he has done nothing, as one who has done much.”
― Richmond Lattimore

“Patroclus, in Achilles' arms, enlighten'd all with stars,”
― Homer

“Um médico, só por si, vale alguns homens.”
― Homero, La iliada: versión directa y literal del griego

“His gaze, which had been following the circling fruit, flickered to mine. I did not have time to look away before he said, softly but distinctly, “Catch.” A fig leapt from the pattern in a graceful arc towards me. It fell into the cup of my palms, soft and slightly warm. I was aware of the boys cheering.

One by one, Achilles caught the remaining fruits, returned them to the table with a performer’s flourish. Except for the last, which he ate, the dark flesh parting to pink seeds under his teeth. The fruit was perfectly ripe, the juice brimming. Without thinking, I brought the one he had thrown me to my lips. Its burst of grainy sweetness filled my mouth; the skin was downy on my tongue. I had loved figs, once.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Show yourselves men my friends, and keep a stout heart. Think of your honour. With all men’s eyes upon you it is a shame to be a coward. He that fights and will not run may live to see another sun. He that runs and will not fight is bound to die and serves him right.”
― Homer, Iliad

“It is impossible to overrate the importance of Homer on the culture and religion of ancient Greece. It is not that the Iliad and the Odyssey were “the Bible” the way the Hebrew Scriptures or the New Testament were for later Jews and Christians. No one thought these epics were “the inspired and infallible Word of God.” But they were thoroughly known and deeply influential for people in the Greek and Roman worlds as they thought about their lives and the nature of the divine realm. In particular, the views of the afterlife propounded by Homer were massively influential for centuries to come.”
― Bart D. Ehrman, Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife

“...in his wild grief Achilles cried aloud, and his mother Thetis heard him...Immediately she rose up through the water...after her came her sisters...and each one's wailing was the thin sound of the wind upon the waves.”
― Barbara Leonie Picard, The Iliad of Homer

“I have endured what no one on earth has endured before. I kissed the hands of the man who killed my son.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades' dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“O my poor child. I bore you for sorrow,
Nursed you for grief. Why? You should be
Spending your time here by your ships
Happily and untroubled by tears,
Since life is short for you, all too brief.
Now you're destined for both an early death
And misery beyond compare. It was for this
I gave birth to you in your father's palace
Under an evil star.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Shut up, fool, and stop talking ransom.
Before Patroclus met his destiny
It was more to my taste to spare Trojan lives,
Capture them, and sell them overseas.
But now they all die, every last Trojan
God puts into my hands before Ilion's walls,
All of them, and especially Priam's children.
You die too, friend. Don't take it hard.
Patroclus died, and he was far better than you.
Take a look at me. Do you see how huge I am,
How beautiful? I have a noble father,
My mother was a goddess, but I too
Am in death's shadow. There will come a time,
Some dawn or evening or noon in this war,
When someone will take my life from me
With a spear thrust or an arrow from a string.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“And the old man groaned, and beat his head
With his hands, and stretched out his arms
To his beloved son, Hector, who had
Taken his stand before the Western Gate,
Determined to meet Achilles in combat.
Priam's voice cracked as he pleaded:
"Hector, my boy, you can't face Achilles
Alone like that, without any support—
You'll go down in a minute. He's too much
For you, son, he won't stop at anything!
O, if only the gods loved him as I do:
Vultures and dogs would be gnawing his corpse.
Then some grief might pass from my heart.
So many fine sons he's taken from me,
Killed or sold them as slaves in the islands.
Two of them now, Lycaon and Polydorus,
I can't see with the Trojans safe in town,
Laothoë's boys. If the Greeks have them
We'll ransom them with the gold and silver
Old Altes gave us. But if they're dead
And gone down to Hades, there will be grief
For myself and the mother who bore them.
The rest of the people won't mourn so much
Unless you go down at Achilles' hands.
So come inside the wall, my boy.
Live to save the men and women of Troy.
Don't just hand Achilles the glory
And throw your life away. Show some pity for me
Before I go out of my mind with grief
And Zeus finally destroys me in my old age,
After I have seen all the horrors of war—
My sons butchered, my daughters dragged off,
Raped, bedchambers plundered, infants
Dashed to the ground in this terrible war,
My sons' wives abused by murderous Greeks.
And one day some Greek soldier will stick me
With cold bronze and draw the life from my limbs,
And the dogs that I fed at my table,
My watchdogs, will drag me outside and eat
My flesh raw, crouched in my doorway, lapping
My blood.
When a young man is killed in war,
Even though his body is slashed with bronze,
He lies there beautiful in death, noble.
But when the dogs maraud an old man's head,
Griming his white hair and beard and private parts,
There's no human fate more pitiable."
And the old man pulled the white hair from his head,
But did not persuade Hector.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“His mother then,
Wailing, sobbing, laid open her bosom
And holding out a breast spoke through her tears:
"Hector, my child, if ever I've soothed you
With this breast, remember it now, son, and
Have pity on me. Don't pit yourself
Against that madman. Come inside the wall.
If Achilles kills you I will never
Get to mourn you laid out on a bier, O
My sweet blossom, nor will Andromache,
Your beautiful wife, but far from us both
Dogs will eat your body by the Greek ships.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“But as it is, death is everywhere
In more shapes than we can count,
And since no mortal is immune or can escape,
Let's go forward, either to give glory
To another man or get glory from him.”
― Homer, Iliad

“Better from evils, well foreseen, to run,
Than perish in the danger we may shun.”
― Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer: Translated by Alexander Pope

“The Iliad consists of nothing more than impressions and the use of impressions. An impression prompted Paris to carry off the wife of Menelaus, and an impression prompted Helen to go with him. If an impression, then, had prompted Menelaus to feel that it was a gain to be deprived of such a wife, what would have come about? Not only the Iliad would have been lost, but the Odyssey too!”
― Epictetus

“Apollo, outraged at the treatment of his friend Hektor, practically describes Achilleus as a brute and a barbarian. He is not. He is a man of culture and intelligence; he knows how to respect heralds, how to entertain estranged friends. He presides over the games with extraordinary courtesy and tact. He is not only a great fighter but a great gentleman, and if he lacks the chivalry of Roland, Lancelot, or Beowulf, that is because theirs is a chivalry coloured with Christian humility which has no certain place in the gallery of Homeric virtues. Above all, Achilleus is a real man, mortal and fallible, but noble enough to make his own tragedy a great one.”
― RIchmond Lattimore (Translation)

“it was raining love”
― Michael Hughes, Country

“Epic is different from life. The present moment might be seen as a blade, cutting the past from the present, severing now from then, but poetry binds the wounds that time inflicts.”
― Adam Nicholson

“Epic is different from life. The present moment might be seen as a blade, cutting the past from the present, severing now from then, but poetry binds the wounds that time inflicts.”
― Adam Nicolson, Why Homer Matters

“For this Hektor, Homer's Hektor, who brags outrageously, who sometimes hangs back when the going is worst, who bolts from Achilleus, is still the hero who forever captures the affection and admiration of the modern reader, far more strongly than his conqueror has ever done. Such are the accidental triumphs of Homer.”
― Richmond Lattimore and Homer

“Simile, with its relatives, is as essential to Homer as formula. It has been more frequently noticed, but even more seriously misunderstood. Simile in Homer is not decoration; it is dynamic invention, and because of this no successor has been able to swing it in the same grand manner.”
― RIchmond Lattimore (Translation), The Iliad of Homer

“It is a remarkable paradox that nearly every important event in the Iliad is the doing of a god, and that one can give a clear account of the poem's entire action with no reference to the gods at all.”
― Geoffrey S. Kirk, The Iliad: A Commentary, Volume 4: Books 13-16

“It is surely more likely that the composer of the Odyssey had the end of the Iliad especially in mind, whether or not both poems are by the same author. It is, however, tempting to go a step further, and to see the similarities as due to the fact that when Homer gave the end of the Iliad the form it has, the Odyssey was already taking shape in his mind: i.e. not only is a single poet the composer of both, but their composition actually overlapped to some extent. Thus we find that not only does the Iliad itself form a great and complex ring-structure, whose end echoes and resolves the themes of its beginning, but it is also inseparably linked or dovetailed thematically with the Odyssey, as if the two works could really almost be regarded as one great epic continuum, stretching from the Wrath of Akhilleus to the safe homecoming and triumph of the last of the heroes, Odysseus.”
― Geoffrey S. Kirk, The Iliad: A Commentary: Volume 6: Books 21-24