𝑵𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒓 𝒘𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒃𝒐𝒓𝒏, 𝒄𝒐𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒐𝒓 𝒃𝒓𝒂𝒗𝒆, 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒔𝒉𝒖𝒏 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒚.

𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒂 𝒇𝒐𝒐𝒍 𝒎𝒂𝒚 𝒃𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕.

__________________________

The Illiad is one of those pieces of literature that is on my list of things I'm really intrigued by but that I have enough knowledge of to know I'm going to struggle to stick with it. I despair of extended similes okay. Even though I love Milton.

So, imagine my delight in hearing feedback about the approachability of this translation by Emily Wilson. And they weren't wrong. This is such a readable translation. If you're having doubts about understanding or sticking with this, I recommend this edition.

The action here is, unsurprisingly, epic. The battle scenes were some of my favourite. It was insanely graphic and anatomically specific. It was described in cinematic detail and was so evocative.

The moments of grief and mourning were beautiful. I found it really effective having scenes of complete slaughter and crazy male violence rubbing up against moments of male tenderness and care.

Achilles was a whiny bitch and he didn't save himself in my view. I found it quite challenging to get into the headspace of the values of this age and just because it is typical of the time doesn't make it feel any less annoying to my modern ears. 

Anyway. I'm so glad I read this. I didn't enjoy it as much as The Odyssey but I did enjoy it a whole lot more than I was anticipating.