The Iliad Achilles Quotes

Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles - Home quote, The Iliad

Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 1-8. The opening lines describe the ferocity of the Trojan War and the rage of Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior and hero to fight in that war. We learn about the conflict within the Greek camp between Achilles and King Agamemnon. While some of the most powerful heroes of the time took part in the Trojan war, it claimed the lives of many of these mighty heroes. We also learn about higher forces at play and shaping the lives of humans and influencing events – the will of Zeus, king of the Greek gods, who seems to control fate.

And the matchless runner reassured him: "Courage!
Out with it now, Calchas. Reveal the will of god,
whatever you may know. And I swear by Apollo
dear to Zeus, the power you pray to, Calchas,
when you reveal god’s will to the Argives – no one,
not while I am alive and see the light on earth, no one
will lay his heavy hands on you by the hollow ships.
None among all the armies. Not even if you mean
Agamemnon here who now claims to be, by far,
the best of the Achaeans."

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 99-108. Achilles moves to reassure Calchas who is fearful of explaining Apollo’s anger in sending the plague. The courageous Achilles lives up to his hero reputation by promising that he will protect Calchas even if it is from King Agamemnon.

if our generous Argives will give me a prize,
a match for my desires, equal to what I’ve lost,
well and good. But if they give me nothing
I will take a prize myself – your own, or Ajax’
or Odysseus’ prize – I’ll commandeer her myself
and let that man I go to visit choke with rage!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 159-165. To repair his pride, Argamemnon agrees to give up the Trojan woman Chryseis, daughter of Chryses, if he gets a new prize of war. Fuelling his fight with Achilles further, he threatens to take the Greek hero’s war prize Briseis or Great Ajax’s, even if they choke with rage.

And now you threaten to strip me of my prize in person –
the one I fought for long and hard, and sons of Achaea
handed her to me.
My honors never equal yours,
whenever we sack some wealthy Trojan stronghold –
my arms bear the brunt of the raw, savage fighting,
true, but when it comes to dividing up the plunder
the lion’s share is yours, and back I go to my ships,
clutching some scrap, some pittance that I love,
when I have fought to exhaustion.
No more now –
back I go to Phthia. Better that way by far,
to journey home in the beaked ships of war.
I have no mind to linger here disgraced,
brimming your cup and piling up your plunder.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 190-202. The dispute between the two dominant Greeks Achilles and Agamemnon escalates. A proud Achilles launches a strong verbal attack on Agamemnon for theatening to take his war prize, Briseis. He complains that Agamemnon takes the lion’s share (metaphor) of the spoils and honors of war, while he gets the scraps after fighting to exhaustion. Achilles says that he would rather go home than remain in Troy dishonored.
Picture of Agamemnon lashing back at Achilles

You – I hate you most of all the warlords
loved by the gods. Always dear to your heart,
strife, yes, and battles, the bloody grind of war.
What if you are a great soldier? That’s just a gift of god.
Go home with your ships and comrades, lord it over
your Myrmidons!
You are nothing to me – you and your overweening anger!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 208-213. As his conflict with Achilles comes to a head, Agamemnon delivers this hostile speech to Achilles. Acknowledging that Achilles is a great warrior who has fought many battles, he tells him that this is only so because the gods have helped him. And on Achilles’s threat to quit the war, Agamemnon tells him to go home with his ships and soldiers, that Achilles and his anger are nothing to him.

Pallas Athena! the terrible blazing of those eyes,
and his winged words went flying: "Why, why now?
Child of Zeus with the shield of thunder, why come now?
To witness the outrage Agamemnon just committed?
1 tell you this, and so help me it’s the truth –
he’ll soon pay for his arrogance with his life!"

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 235-240. Achilles asks the goddess Athena why she has appeared to him. Achilles is in a rage because of Agamemnon’s disrespect to him, by threatening to take away his war prize Briseis.

Her gray eyes clear, the goddess Athena answered,
"Down from the skies I come to check your rage
if only you will yield.
The white-armed goddess Hera sped me down:
she loves you both, she cares for you both alike.
Stop this fighting, now. Don’t lay hand to sword.
Lash him with threats of the price that he will face."

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 241-246. Achilles considers attacking Agamemnon, but goddess Athena is sent down from heaven by Hera to calm their favored hero. Athena asks Achilles to stay his anger, and demands self control and obedience from him.

Staggering drunk, with your dog’s eyes, your fawn’s heart!
Never once did you arm with the troops and go to battle
or risk an ambush packed with Achaea’s picked men
you lack the courage, you can see death coming.
Safer by far, you find, to foray all through camp,
commandeering the prize of any man who speaks against you.
King who devours his people! Worthless husks, the men you rule.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 264-270. Achilles uses metaphorical language to taunt Agamemnon and compare him to lowly animals. The Greek warrior is himself proud in battle and he is far from impressed by what he says is Agamemnon’s lack of courage in the fight against Troy. Achilles is also furious with Agamemnon for commandeering his "prize" slave Briseis.

True, old man – all you say is fit and proper –
but this soldier wants to tower over the armies,
he wants to rule over all, to lord it over all,
give out orders to every man in sight. Well,
there’s one, I trust, who will never yield to him!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 335-339. Agamemnon responds to Nestor’s attempt to mediate in his dispute with Achilles, when the elder captain and king of Pylos asks that they both back down. But fueled by his intense pride, the angry Agamemnon ignores Nestor’s plea, accusing Achilles of wanting to rule and lord it over everyone. He vows that he will never yield to Achilles.

They were afraid, they held the king in awe
and stood there, silent. Not a word to Achilles.
not a question. But he sensed it all in his heart,
their fear, their charge, and broke the silence for them:
"Welcome. couriers! Good heralds of Zeus and men.
here, come closer. You have done nothing to me.
You are not to blame. No one but Agamemnon –
he is the one who sent you for Briseis.
Go, Patroclus, Prince, bring out the girl."

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 390-398. When Agamemnon’s messengers arrive at Achilles’s camp to take Briseis, looking fearful, Achilles attempts to put at ease. Offering a hand of friendship, he assures them that he attributes no blame to them, but to Agamemnon alone. He orders his close friend and confidant Patroclus to bring out the girl.

But let them both bear witness to my loss…
in the face of blissful gods and mortal men,
in the face of that unbending, ruthless king –
if the day should come when the armies need me
to save their ranks from ignominious, stark defeat.
The man is raving – with all the murderous fury in his heart.
He lacks the sense to see a day behind, a day ahead,
and safeguard the Achaeans battling by the ships.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 400-407. Agamemnon sends two heralds to seize Briseis from Achilles and Achilles consents to hand her over. He tells the heralds that Agamemnon is an inferior leader and says that Agamemnon will not be there to save the Achaeans when the need arises. Achilles also predicts that the day will come when they will need the help of Achilles.

But Achilles wept, and slipping away from his companions,
far apart, sat down on the beach of the heaving gray sea
and scanned the endless ocean.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 413-415. Achilles becomes very emotional and cries when Briseis is taken away from him by Agamemnon’s men, even though she is a slave girl. This is partly out of rage that Agamemnon dishonored him, but also because he actually loves her. Later in Book 9 Achilles confesses: "I loved that woman with all my heart, though I won her like a trophy with my spear."
Mother! You gave me life, short as that life will be - Achilles in Homer's Iliad

Mother!
You gave me life, short as that life will be.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 416-417. Achilles’s short life and early death are emphasized in his meeting with his mother Thetis. This is the first foreshadowing in the poem of the great warrior’s premature demise. Achilles is pleading with his goddess mother to appeal to Zeus to grant him honor in his short time on earth. He wants Zeus to help the Trojan cause, so that Agamemnon will see how mad he was to disgrace and wrong Achilles.

And Thetis answered, bursting into tears,
"O my son, my sorrow, why did I ever bear you?
All I bore was doom…
Would to god you could linger by your ships
without a grief in the world, without a torment!
Doomed to a short life, you have so little time.
And not only short, now, but filled with heartbreak too,
more than all other men alive – doomed twice over.
Ah to a cruel fate I bore you in our halls!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 491-499. A weeping Thetis tells her son Achilles that cruel fate has determined he will have a short life filled with heartbreak. His destiny is so bad that she laments the fact he had ever been born. As a mother she is understandably upset that she is fated to love her son.
So, who of the gods this time, my treacherous one, was hatching plans' with you - Homer

So, who of the gods this time, my treacherous one,
was hatching plans’ with you?
Always your pleasure, whenever my back is turned,
to settle things in your grand clandestine way.
You never deign, do you, freely and frankly,
to share your plots with me – never, not a word!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 648-653. A row breaks out in heaven as Hera chides her "treacherous" husband Zeus for hatching plans behind her back. This is after Thetis comes to beg of Zeus that he honor Achilles by helping the Trojans. This displeases Hera as she favors the Greeks.

Imagine – I and Achilles, wrangling over a girl,
battling man-to-man. And I, I was the first
to let my anger flare. Ah if the two of us
could ever think as one, Troy could delay
her day of death no longer, not one moment.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 2, lines 448-452. Speaking to his counselor Nestor, Agamemnon expresses some regret for having argued with Achilles – "wrangling over a girl," as he puts it. He knows how valuable the Trojan hero is to the Achaean war effort. If only he and Achilles could work together they could take Troy in a day, Agamemnon says, almost in a spirit of friendship for the man he quarreled with.

No one will offer a better plan than this…
the plan I still retain, and I’ve been forming,
well, for a good long while now, from the very day
that you, my illustrious King, infuriated Achilles –
you went and took from his tents the girl Briseis,
and not with any applause from us, far from it:
I for one, I urged you against it, strenuously.
But you, you gave way to your overbearing anger,
disgraced a great man the gods themselves esteem –
you seized his gift of honor and keep her still.
But even so, late as it is, let us contrive
to set all this to rights, to bring him round
with gifts of friendship and warm, winning words.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 9, lines 123-135. Nestor, King of Pylos and oldest Achaean commander, calls out Agamemnon for his self-pride and says that it is not too late to heal his rift with Achilles. He tells us that Agamemnon in anger stole Achilles’s gift of honor Briseis and keeps her still, infuriating Achilles, a hero with the gods on his side. Nestor urges Agamemnon to acknowledge his fault and set things right.
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