General
I am married to Astyanax's father, Hector.
Andromache
"No, you colossal, shameless--we all followed you, to please you, to fight for you, to win your honor back from the Trojans . . . What do you care? Nothing. You don't look right or left" (1.186-189). Achilles, in a rage, says this to this person.
Agamemnon
When Andromache says to Hector: "You, Hector--you are my father now, my noble mother, a brother too, and you are my husband, young and warm and strong!" (6.48-50), she means this specifically and for this specific reason.
Hector is her only family now (besides her son) because Achilles has killed her brothers and father, and her mother has died as well. She is scared that he will die in the war if he goes.
Although not resolving his anger toward Agamemnon, Achilles in Book 22 has become motivated to change course for this specific reason.
Achilles' rage and grief over the death of Patroclus at the hands of Hector motivates him to reenter the battle.
"The swift runner" and "breaker of horses" are examples of this epic literary element.
Epithet
The old and wise Nestor tries to convince Achilles and Agamemnon to do this because of this reason.
The Achaeans should stop arguing amongst themselves because it is only weakening their strength as a powerful alliance against the Trojans.
The father of Agamemnon's war prize appeals to "Apollo! God of the silver bow" (1.43) to "Pay the Danaans back--your arrows for my tears!" (1.49). Apollo answers his prayer by doing this ...
Apollo unleashes a deadly plague on the Greek army.
Hector says he must return to the battle because he would bring shame on himself if he did not. He also says he must fight in the front ranks to win great glory for his father and for himself. However, he knows this in his heart.
Hector knows that Troy is destined to fall.
Hector is tricked into thinking his brother, Deiphobus, is fighting alongside him in this way specifically ...
Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare, takes on the form of Deiphobus and offers encouragement to Hector.
As Hector's body is being brought back to Troy, Homer writes, "Dawn flung out her golden robe across the earth" (24.258). Because this image suggests the universal meaning of a new beginning and hope, it is called this type of literary element.
This image is an archetype.
Helen went with this person willingly or unwillingly, but either way she is infamously considered the cause of the war between the Greeks and the Trojans.
Paris
Just before Achilles almost gives in to his impulse to kill his own comrade in arms with his sword, he is stopped in this way.
Athena seizes him by his "fiery hair" and urges him to "Stop this fighting now" (1.246).
Hector says that "No man alive has ever escaped" (6,.121) this ...
fate
In Book 24, King Priam goes to Achilles' camp for this reason and appeals to him in these ways.
1. King Priam goes to Achilles' camp to retrieve his son Hector's body for a proper burial.
2. King Priam appeals to Achilles by offering him a ransom and reminding him to remember his own father who is very old and waiting for his son to return home from Troy.
The comparison of Achilles to a wild mountain hawk and Hector as its prey, the "cringing dove" (22.12), is an example of this literary device.
Epic Simile
In Book 22, Homer writes: "As a hound in the mountains starts a fawn from its lair, hunting him down the gorges, down the narrow glens, and the fawn goes to ground, hiding deep in brush, but the hound comes racing fast, nosing him out until he lands his kill" (22.70-75). To whom is the hound compared, and to whom is the fawn compared?
Achilles is compared to the hound, and Hector is compared to the fawn.
At the end of Book 1, Achilles vows this...
Achilles vows he will never fight for Agamemnon or the Achaeans again.
When Hector says to Andromache, "Even so, it is less the pain of the Trojans still to come that weighs me down ... that is nothing, nothing beside your agony" (6.73-78), he is referring to this ...
Andromache will have to live the rest of her life as a grieving widow and the unwilling servant (slave) of a Greek woman.
After speaking with King Priam, Achilles expresses concern to the dead Patroclus for this reason.
Achilles fears that Patroclus will be angry at him when in the "House of Death" (24.138), he learns that Achilles let King Priam have Prince Hector back for a worthy ransom.
The Iliad begins in medias res which can be translated as ...
"in the middle of things"
As the greatest of the Greek warriors and also suffering over the loss of his best friend, Patroclus, Achilles represents these two opposing elements of war.
Glory and grief.
Agamemnon becomes angry with the prophet who comes to tell him why Apollo is angry with the Greeks. Agamemnon calls him a "Seer of misery!" (1.124). This character is named ...
Calchas
As Hector leaves for battle, the women of his house believe this ...
They are "stirred ... to a high pitch of mourning [because they are] so convinced that never again would he come home from battle, never escape the Argives' rage and bloody hands" (6.135-139).
At the end of Book 24, Achilles shows respect to old King Priam in these ways.
Achilles serves King Priam a full meal, has his servants prepare him a comfortable place to sleep, and says he will hold off future attacks on Troy for as much time as King Priam needs to give his son a proper burial with full "royal honors" (24.219).
As the epic opens, Homer calls upon the Muse of poetry and music for inspiration with these words: "Rage -- Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles" (1.1). This Homeric epic literary element is called...
"Invocation of the Muse"