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“Will you tell me who hurt you?
I imagine saying, 'You.' But that is nothing more than childishness.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Epic art is founded on action, and the model of a society in which action could play out in greatest freedom was that of the heroic Greek period; so said Hegel, and he demonstrated it with The Iliad: even though Agamemnon was the prime king, other kings and princes chose freely to join him and, like Achilles, they were free to withdraw from the battle. Similarly the people joined with their princes of their own free will; there was no law that could force them; behavior was determined only by personal motives, the sense of honor, respect, humility before a more powerful figure, fascination with a hero's courage, and so on. The freedom to participate in the struggle and the freedom to desert it guaranteed every man his independence. In this way did action retain a personal quality and thus its poetic form.

Against this archaic world, the cradle of the epic, Hegel contrasts the society of his own period: organized into the state, equipped with a constitution, laws, a justice system, an omnipotent administration, ministries, a police force, and so on. The society imposes its moral principles on the individual, whose behavior is thus determined by far more anonymous wishes coming from the outside than by his own personality. And it is in such a world that the novel was born.”
― Milan Kundera, The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts

“Patroclus, in Achilles' arms, enlighten'd all with stars,”
― Homer

“His gaze, which had been following the circling fruit, flickered to mine. I did not have time to look away before he said, softly but distinctly, “Catch.â€� A fig leapt from the pattern in a graceful arc towards me. It fell into the cup of my palms, soft and slightly warm. I was aware of the boys cheering.

One by one, Achilles caught the remaining fruits, returned them to the table with a performer’s flourish. Except for the last, which he ate, the dark flesh parting to pink seeds under his teeth. The fruit was perfectly ripe, the juice brimming. Without thinking, I brought the one he had thrown me to my lips. Its burst of grainy sweetness filled my mouth; the skin was downy on my tongue. I had loved figs, once.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Precious are the last moments when you do not know they are the last.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“She must be strong enough to hold the memory of her husband, to sing his song in her heart until she joined him in the Underworld.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“Briseis blinked, shaking her head in disbelief. 'You have taken everything from me. My husband. My brothers. My father. You have given me no word of my mother. There is nowhere else for me to go.'
'I expect too much,' he stated.
'Their faces fade from my memory,' Briseis said, quietly. 'Without them, I have nothing.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“I could not burn your mortality from your body, so live before your days are gone and regret fills your heart.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“He must lay siege against Briseis' walls and conquer her. Love would be his sword and he would break all her chains.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“Show yourselves men my friends, and keep a stout heart. Think of your honour. With all men’s eyes upon you it is a shame to be a coward. He that fights and will not run may live to see another sun. He that runs and will not fight is bound to die and serves him right.”
― Homer, Iliad

“It is impossible to overrate the importance of Homer on the culture and religion of ancient Greece. It is not that the Iliad and the Odyssey were “the Bibleâ€� the way the Hebrew Scriptures or the New Testament were for later Jews and Christians. No one thought these epics were “the inspired and infallible Word of God.â€� But they were thoroughly known and deeply influential for people in the Greek and Roman worlds as they thought about their lives and the nature of the divine realm. In particular, the views of the afterlife propounded by Homer were massively influential for centuries to come.”
― Bart D. Ehrman, Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife

“Hektor was the wall around her world that kept life's perils at bay.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“Understand, I did not conquer my wife. I won her over. There is a difference.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“You must speak to her heart, then. But first, you must open yours, then hers will follow.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“You stupid food!" -Athene to Ares”
― Homer

“Zoals de wester met geweld van vlagen
toeslaat, de wolken van de blauwe zuider
verstoot: een massa golven zwelt en rolt
en zeeschuim spat omhoog door het gehuil
van waaiwind waarin water wijduit dwarrelt-
zo velde Hektor tal van krijgerskoppen.”
― Patrick Lateur, The Iliad

“Assim falou, em grande súplica - o estulto! Pois suplicava / a sua própria morte funesta e o seu próprio destino.”
― Homero, ±õ±ôí²¹»å²¹

“Dusk fell, and from the sacred oak-tree by the Scaean Gate the two vultures were gone; god and goddess, for the moment, reconciled.”
― Barbara Leonie Picard, The Iliad of Homer

“...in his wild grief Achilles cried aloud, and his mother Thetis heard him...Immediately she rose up through the water...after her came her sisters...and each one's wailing was the thin sound of the wind upon the waves.”
― Barbara Leonie Picard, The Iliad of Homer

“I have endured what no one on earth has endured before. I kissed the hands of the man who killed my son.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades' dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Life is to be tended like these trees and those vines.' He pointed across the field to the vineyard hanging with ripened fruit. 'Be mindful of the words and deeds you plant, for they will root and grow whatever you intend. It can be a blessing or a curse. And prune away the dead and sick from your life, making way for new.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“You are the fire that burns within my heart. There is room for no other. When I die, it will be your Name upon my lips.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“Thetis knew this woman had conquered the unconquerable, without knowing she had done so.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“If you truly hope to win her over, be as honest with yourself as with her.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“I would not trade one day of our life for all the gold in the citadel.”
― Janell Rhiannon, Rise of Princes

“É°ù¾±²õ—strife—between heroes, it will be recalled, was a favorite theme of epic. Looked at coldly, stripped of the dignity of their noble epic contexts, these quarrels are almost always petty. In the Cypria, "Achilles quarrels with Agamemnon because he received a late invitation" to a feast; in the Aethiopis, "a quarrel arises between Odysseus and Aias over the armor of Achilles"; the Odyssey tells of a quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus at a festival, not to mention the Iliad's own dramatic action arising from the "quarrel" between Achilles and Agamemnon.”
― Caroline Alexander, The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War

“That after the roll of centuries, this same Iliad, whose message had been so clearly grasped by ancient poets and historians, came to be perceived as a martial epic glorifying war is one of the great ironies of literary history. Part of this startling transformation can undoubtedly be attributed to the principal venues where the Iliad was read—the elite schools whose classically based curriculum was dedicated to inculcating into the nation's future manhood the desirability of "dying well" for king and country. Certain favorite outstanding scenes plucked out of context come to define the entire epic: Hektor's ringing refusal to heed the warning omen, for exampleâ€�" 'One bird sign is best: to fight in defence of our country' "—or his valiant resolutionâ€�" 'not die without a struggle and ingloriously.' " Homer's insistent depiction of the war as a pointless catastrophe that blighted all it touched was thus adroitly circumvented.”
― Caroline Alexander, The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War

“In 1990, the Colombian Ministry of Culture set up a system of itinerant libraries to take books to the inhabitants of distant rural regions. For this purpose, carrier book bags with capacious pockets were transported on donkeysâ€� backs up into the jungle and the sierra. Here the books were left for several weeks in the hands of a teacher or village elder who became, de facto, the librarian in charge. Most of the books were technical works, agricultural handbooks, collections of sewing patterns and the like, but a few literary works were also included. According to one librarian, the books were always safely accounted for. ‘I know of a single instance in which a book was not returned,â€� she said. ‘We had taken, along with the usual practical titles, a Spanish translation of the Iliad. When the time came to exchange the book, the villagers refused to give it back. We decided to make them a present of it, but asked them why they wished to keep that particular title. They explained that Homer’s story reflected their own: it told of a war-torn country in which mad gods mix with men and women who never know exactly what the fighting is about, or when they will be happy, or why they will be killed.”
― Alberto Manguel, Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey: A Biography

“it was raining love”
― Michael Hughes, Country