Finished reading Iliad today, took me 3 days

i really enjoyed the similes, made it more epic imo, like a pack of lions solving a captcha.

Choosing a favorite part is really hard, the standard stuff like Achilles' shield, his meeting with Priam, etc. are all good. I especially like the scene of Achilles slaying Lycaon.

>Come, friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so?
Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you.
And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am?
The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life a deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you, death and the strong force of fate are waiting.
There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon when a man will take my life in battle too—flinging a spear perhaps or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow."

It contrast very well with his sparing of a trojan earlier in the book, as well as his detachment from humanity and mortality, as he, paradoxically approaches and embraces his mortality. There is no actual anger, or hate in the sense Achilles uses the word "friend" here, if you look at the original Greek he means it sincerely, which makes this scene so powerful.

The Iliad is probably the best book I've ever read, and I'm glad Yea Forums memed me into reading it. It has honestly changed my life, and ignited in me a passion for literature.

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>tfw achilles laments his death in the odyssey

The funeral games were pretty cool

exactly the scene i meant. the art is amazing, even better than i imagined it.

i couldn't say Achilles is my favorite character though, partly because he's so merciless and kills the defenseless.
also, while it's a truly great monumental piece of lit, i still think it's profoundly retarded to start wars because of wives

Oh yeah, that was a highlight as well. He's definitely the highlight of that entire part, and seeing Achilles in the underworld right after I had read the Iliad made my heart skip a beat, in some strange combination of the joy and excitement of seeing an old friend, and sadness of losing someone. This was especially striking considering I knew he'd died after the events of the Iliad, simply by growing up in the West, but him being in the underworld somehow made it real for me, confirmed it.

Him killing defenseless people, and his lack of mercy is an extremely important theme though. Not only does his rage bring him closer to a beast, than a man, but it also bring him closer to a God than a man. It's this weird contrast (And the Iliad is full of these) which I don't think has ever been pulled off since then. He has his metaphorical humanity ripped from him with the death of Patroklos, and this theme of dehumanization continues throughout the rest of the Iliad. In a sense he discards the entire concept of mercy, as an idea, in fact the whole Greek value system is upheaved, but not only can he not escape it, he cannot even properly describe is disillusionment. Remember, towards the end Achilles doesn't eat food, his chest gets filled the nectar of the Gods - Ambrosia. When I read that it made me sit up straight, because it symbolizes something extremely important, and powerful.

Hector saying goodbye to his family is the best part, gut punch to the feels
>Thus, having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy
>Stretched his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy.
>The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast,
>Scared at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest.
>With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled,
>And Hector hasted to relieve his child;
>The glittering terrors from his brow unbound,
>And placed the beaming helmet on the ground;
>Then kissed the child, and, lifting high in air,
>Thus to the gods preferred a father's prayer

I read a translation in prose and enjoyed it immensely. Did I rob myself of the proper experience by not reading it in verse?

>reading anything other than Pope

>reading Pope
If you want to read Homer, read another translation. Reading Pope will give you Pope, and not Homer. I agree Pope is a great poet, but he masks Homer too much.

very nice choice. the first decent choice in this thread i think, though pope really doesn't do it justice. astyanax being frightened by his dad's helmet (which homer kept referring to ) - it's very touching

course not.
besides any translation ought to be better than pope

Once you've read a few versions it's unlikely your favourite will be a prose version, but it's fine for your first go through and helps you get a grip of the story and characters.

If you want to read homer, read homer. None of the 'literal' translations of homer are homer either.

I loved the end with Agamemnon meeting the suitors in Hades. You read about his awful homecoming, how he died, etc. And you can imagine how angry many soldiers when they got home from the war and found their home I'm shambles and wives stolen, but Odysseus gets his home back, and Agamemnon is overjoyed at learning from the suitors ghosts that his brother in arms made it home and got what was his back.
That part was beautiful, as was the dog waiting for Odysseus to make it home. He wanted to be sure his master was back home safe and sound, before he'd finally rest. Love and loyalty, very sad, bit still amazing

pope knew practically no greek

Whats the best 'definitive' version to start with?

robert graves.
he wrote a very perceptive prose translation (in staid but simple english prose). however perhaps one tenth of the iliad are dramatic and lyrical occasions (a solemn prayer, a country song disguised as a simile, etc) which sound wrong in english prose. here he 'followed the example of the ancient Irish and Welsh bards by, as it were, taking up my harp and singing only where prose will not suffice' so it's like pic
also graves is an honest man and a good greek scholar.

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is this shit readable if i'm a layperson?

Glaucon and Diomedes

there are so many good moments
in book 21 when the gods line up against each other and mimic the war that is happening on the battlefield and zeus is standing behind and watching them and thinking it very amusing
when poseidon says to apollo i suppose we should fight against one another and apollo says to him why? they are only mortals, we shouldn't care as much, we should separate ourselves off from these creatures who live and die like leaves on the tree
you chose the the wounds lol

The prophetic shield

yes, why do you think we meme "start with the greeks"? it's not overly complicated but still in depth literature

it's not mentioned it's not even alluded to by homer. it wasn't until the big gay classical era that it was, by a process really of anachronising, aeschylus and his myrmidons made it absolutely explicit

wounds are my favorite detail about tge text. fav scene is probably

mine is the tension between the traditional formulations and the specific situations that are described in the story, i.e. calling him achilles the swift-footed over and over while he sulks motionless in his tent.
why the wounds

and that's just a moment in the 5 book sequence of achilles trying to assauge his rage. i only remember my tutor referencing it once 'even the ones begging for their lives.' the greeks being against the greeks is far more vicious & prominent in the story than the greeks being against the trojans.

for me is the Catalogue
also all the meta shit
>muh bicameral mind
>how the Iliad was recited/represented

no achilles and Patroclus were gay as fuck dude.

I have done what no man before me has done

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Wasn't because of the wife, Paris went against the law of Zeus (the host-guest relationship was sacred to the Greeks and Zeus was the protector of such contracts) so they had to go after Paris or Zeus would punish them for not taking his law seriously. Herodotus gives another reason but I forget what it was.
Basically the war wasn't started just for the sake of Helen.

>my favorite part of this ancient epic is gore
brainlet post

I bought the Robert Fagles translation because this place memed it and I have no fucking idea what I am reading.

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c'est vrai

read a prose translation.

read it with Prokofiev in the background, that´s a good combination desu desu

>reading a scene from the cradle of western civilisation with some unrelieved bad popular-song and out-moded 1910-1930 aridity piss

only the battle scenes mind you

i skip the battle scenes

Sucks we'll never know how it really sounded when it was recited back then

youtube.com/watch?v=qI0mkt6Z3I0

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edgy

not really. my tutor endorses that treatment of it. i know some classical scholars do as well

well, if your tutor is a bugman it wouldn´t surprise me in the slightest

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no i go to a small english provincial university it's called oxford

>dude masculinity

insecure about something?

None are more beautiful, except Homer himself.

>i know some classical scholars do as well
Sure, on there 7th or 8th read through maybe

Prokofiev is great you spleen.

yeah i didn't mean on the first read (although you could do that without offence to homer). the point is they're not essential.

than pope? he turned it into an english 18th century poem full of 18th century ideas of decency and proper behaviour and cutting out some of the more unpleasant things. the iliad isn't beautiful, it's exciting and huge and terrible and semi-barbaric.

when aquiles finally goes to fight he obliterates the troyans

soviet art ISN'T NEARLY AS GOOD as western 'bourgeois' art because they haven't been doing it NEARLY AS LONG

stop projecting

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>took me 3 days
I see you're a bit slow aren't you

Ironic in a Homer thread

why?

The parts that pertain most directly to modern day heroic feats of arms.

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Alright destroying of soiboys, ill keep you to your quest