The Iliad by Homer. Translated by Samuel Butler. Online translation. Book One.
The Iliad starts off with a dispute between Agamemnon, son of Atreus and Achilles, son of Peleus. Agamemnon is the King of Mycenae and brother to the King of Sparta, Menelaus. Menelaus lost his wife, Helen, to Paris, the son of Priam, and has called upon his brother to go to war with the Trojans to get back Helen. Agamemnon being the hubris person he is, agreed and gathered thousands upon thousands of Greeks to attack Troy. Before the Greeks attacked Troy they overtook another city where Agamemnon took a priest’s daughter, Chryseis, as his prize. Her father, Chryses, tried to ransom his daughter, but Agamemnon laughed at him and sent him away. The priest then prayed to the sun god Apollo. Apollo heard his prayer and he rained arrows upon the Greeks. Achilles recognized that the reason the men were getting ill was because of Agamemnon’s refusal of the ransom. Achilles called a gathering of the men to explain this phenomenon and Agamemnon was forced to return the priest’s daughter. After Agamemnon lost his prize he decided to take Briseis, Achilles woman. Achilles response to this was per outrage and he decides to take himself out of the war with the Trojans. This decision determines the rest of the events that occur in the Iliad. A reader should look closely at this passage because there is a lot of important information that will help them understand the rest of the Iliad.

But the son of Peleus again began railing at the son of Atreus, for he was still in a rage. “Wine-bibber,” he cried, “with the face of a dog and the heart of a hind, you never dare to go out with the host in fight, nor yet with our chosen men in ambuscade. You shun this as you do death itself. You had rather go round and rob his prizes from any man who contradicts you. You devour your people, for you are king over a feeble folk; otherwise, son of Atreus, henceforward you would insult no man. Therefore I say, and swear it with great oath-nay, by this my scepter which shaltsprout neither leaf nor shoot, nor bud anew from the day on which it left its parent stem upon the mountains- for the axe stripped it of leaf and bark, and now the sons of the Achaeans bear it as judges and guardians of the decrees of heaven- so surely and solemnly do I swear that hereafter they shall look fondly for Achilles and shall not find him. In the day of your distress, when your men fall dying by the murderous hand of Hector, you shall not know how to help them, and shall rend your heart with rage for the hour when you offered insult to the bravest of the Achaeans.”

Work Cited
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Homer, . The Iliad. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. 9th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton & Company Inc., n.d. 194-96. Print.
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