The Iliad

a line-for-line translation · twenty-four books

Book IThe wrath: the quarrel over Briseis, the plague, and Thetis's bargain with Zeus.
Book IIThe lying Dream, the testing of the army, Thersites beaten — and the Catalogue of Ships.
Book IIIThe duel for Helen: Paris against Menelaus, the view from the wall, and Aphrodite's rescue.
Book IVThe truce broken: Pandarus's arrow, the review of the troops, and the first battle of the poem.
Book VThe aristeia of Diomedes: gods bleed — Aphrodite, then Ares himself, wounded by a mortal's spear.
Book VIHector in Troy: Glaucus and Diomedes trade armor on the field; Hector and Andromache at the Scaean Gates.
Book VIIThe duel of Hector and Ajax, the burial truce, and the building of the Achaean wall.
Book VIIIZeus bans the gods from the battle; the golden scales tip against the Achaeans; the Trojans camp on the plain under a thousand watchfires.
Book IXThe Embassy to Achilles: Agamemnon's gifts, three speeches, and three refusals — each smaller than the last.
Book XThe Doloneia: both armies send spies into the same night — Dolon dies talking, and Odysseus and Diomedes come home laughing, with the horses of Rhesus.
Book XIThe long day begins: Agamemnon's morning of glory, the captains carried off wounded one by one, and Nestor plants the plan that will kill Patroclus.
Book XIIThe battle at the wall: the Trojans storm it on foot, Sarpedon states the heroic contract, Hector overrules the omen, and the gate goes down.
Book XIIIPoseidon's defiance: Zeus looks away, the sea-god slips into the battle in disguise, and the line holds — shield on shield, man on man.
Book XIVThe Deception of Zeus: Hera borrows the girdle of Aphrodite, buys Sleep with a Grace, and Zeus sleeps on Gargaron while the sea-god turns the battle.
Book XVZeus wakes: the plan of the whole poem is spoken aloud, Apollo kicks down the wall like a child's sand, and Hector's hand closes on the stern of Protesilaus's ship.
Book XVIThe Patrocleia: Patroclus goes out in Achilles' armor, quenches the fire, kills Sarpedon — and dies at the wall, struck by a god, a boy, and Hector, in that order.
Book XVIIThe fight over the body of Patroclus: Hector puts on the armor of Achilles, the immortal horses weep, and Ajax prays not for rescue but for light.
Book XVIIIThe news reaches Achilles: the scream, the choice of death — and on the anvil of Hephaestus a whole world of peace, hammered onto the shield he will carry to kill Hector.
Book XIXThe wrath is renounced from a seat; the blame is laid on a goddess; and the gifts nobody looks at are carried past a fasting man — who arms, mounts, and hears his own horse foretell his death.
Book XXZeus opens the gates and the gods go down to war — then sit and watch, while Achilles begins the killing that will not stop until Hector: Aeneas saved for empire, Hector saved for Book 22, and twelve men in a row not saved at all.
Book XXIHalf the rout is driven into the river, and the river fights back: Lycaon's bared throat, Asteropaeus's two spears, Scamander rising against the man who has choked him with corpses — water against fire, gods against gods — until Troy's gates gape for the routed, and Apollo, wearing a man's face, runs Achilles out of the way.
Book XXIIOne man is left outside the wall. His father begs from the tower, his mother bares her breast; he debates, runs, is run down past the washing-places of the old peace; the scales dip, Athena lies, the ash spear finds the throat above the stolen armor's collar — and a woman heating bath-water learns why the tower is wailing.
Book XXIIIThe ghost asks for burial and one last embrace; the pyre takes horses, dogs, and twelve men; and then — games: the army that has been killing for nine years spends a day competing for tripods and mares, quarreling justly, yielding handsomely, and laughing — while the man who arranged it all watches, having no future of his own.
Book XXIVThe gods vote against the rage; a mother tells her son to eat, to sleep, to love; an old man kisses the hands that killed his sons — and the two of them weep, eat, and look at each other. The poem that began with the wrath ends with a burial done properly.

General introduction — the poem, the art of repetition, the Greek text, the English line, and this edition.

Index of names & places — the poem’s principal persons, gods, peoples, and places, with pronunciations and linked citations.

For further reading — the Iliad’s ancient company: the Cycle, the tragedians, the parodies, Rome’s answer, the hoaxes, the scholars.