The Illiad - Book One - 18

by Homer

As he spoke he wept aloud, and his mother heard him where she was
sitting in the depths of the sea hard by the old man her father.
Forthwith she rose as it were a grey mist out of the waves, sat
down before him as he stood weeping, caressed him with her hand,
and said, "My son, why are you weeping? What is it that grieves
you? Keep it not from me, but tell me, that we may know it
together."

Achilles drew a deep sigh and said, "You know it; why tell you
what you know well already? We went to Thebe the strong city of
Eetion, sacked it, and brought hither the spoil. The sons of the
Achaeans shared it duly among themselves, and chose lovely
Chryseis as the meed of Agamemnon; but Chryses, priest of Apollo,
came to the ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and
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.

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Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

More About This Book

From the earliest days of Ancient Greece, the author(s) of this poem were contemporaries of the writers of the Bible's Old Testament.

Summary of First Book: The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles--Achilles withdraws from the war, and sends his mother Thetis to ask Jove to help the Trojans--Scene between Jove and Juno on Olympus.

Painting: The Wrath of Achilles by Michael Drolling, 1819.

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