We’re finishing the Iliad—and I have some thoughts.

Books 17–24 bring us Patroclus’s death and funeral, Achilles’s return to battle, the death of Hector, and finally Priam’s heartbreaking journey into the Greek camp to ransom his son’s body. That final encounter between Priam and Achilles may be the scene that stays with me most.

But I’m also wrestling with the Iliad as a whole. Why has this war dragged on for nine years? Why does almost no one seem particularly eager to be there? Why exactly is Achilles considered such a great hero when his rage causes so much destruction? And can we please talk about Paris?

This was an exhausting, frustrating read for me—and I’m not quite ready to decide what I think of it. I’m going to let those questions sit while we move into the Odyssey and begin asking the question the Iliad leaves hanging: after all this, is there anything left to go home to?

BOOKS IN THIS EPISODE

The Iliad: Fagles, Wilson, Rouse.

The Odyssey: Fagles, Wilson, Rouse.

The Aeneid: Fagles, Ruden.

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