Being that this was my first experience reading greek mythology, I found it very difficult to comprehend. The language and format were foreign to what Ive read in the past. Although this made the readings difficult i still enjoyed many aspects of Book 1. It was very interesting to read a story based on conflict between two characters fighting on the same side. I found this intriguing because one could only imagine the outcome of a war being fought with major internal conflict between fighters of the same army. Another aspect of the story that struck my interest was how the characters would practically receive immediate answers to their prayers, almost if religion was a perfect tool to seek revenge on others. I found this concept to be very ironic considering today’s views on how religion should be practiced. It was fascinating to read a tale being played out in both reality and the heavens as they refer to it in the text as “olympus”. The best part of reading book 1 was the process of visualizing the story in my head. In my opinion Pride and power are most important to Agamemnon, unlike Achilles who seems to value honor and love above all. Achilles is also very prideful which is why he refuses to be stripped of his women “Briseis” or referred to in the text as his prize. Achilles doesn’t understand why Agamemnon gets to walk away with his prize, knowing that he is the heart and soul of the Achaean army. For Agamemnon this quarrel is not about love but about maintaing his power over the achaeans. I think Agamemnon is insecure in times of battle being that he is a poor fighter, and feels threatened by Achilles and his fighting skills. Since fighting skills are the most important factor in war, I can see why Agamemnon feels insecure. I am looking forward to reading more of this book, while getting a better grasp of the material with the help of my fellow students and professor.

So far, Book One of the Iliad is awesome. It starts of immediately with the story, something that you, Professor, mentioned in class. For some reason, this form of story telling has disappeared; almost every movie now and days has to start off with slow exposition. While yes, the exposition of a story is important to develop the setting and characters, the Iliad does this without having to go through the boring exposition by introducing and displaying the character of our hero, Achilles.

Achilles is a strong, cunning man who must put up with an injustice; the loss of Briseis, the woman he won in battle to Agamemnon. Such a scenario with this type of character reminds me of Hamlet, for he too is a strong and cunning man, is royalty, and is also plagued with injustice. It is when Achilles is crying on the beaches for his mother, asking her to ruin the Achaean’s chances of victory that I see the Hamlet parallel the most. This scene reminded me of Hamlet’s monologues of sorrow, how he says he is in a miserable position because his mother married his corrupt uncle.

The injustice that Achilles has, losing his prized Briseis to Agamemnon, reveals the immature side of Achilles. He yells and screams at Agamemnon, calling him a dogface and being greedy and selfish, and soon stomps away like a child. This is ironic, to a person of 21-century New York, because this type of behavior is not looked fondly upon; Achilles’ tantrums and crying for his mother are seen as childish. Yet, the ancient Greeks celebrate him as a hero, or maybe they celebrate his actions later on?

To be honest i am pretty excited to read the Iliad in English. Having read this story in High school but in Greek induces my excitement since i already know whats going to happen but i just need to refresh my memory by reading it again in English. The fact that it is a Greek originated story is also another factor that pushes me to really read and understand this story because being Greek is a well enough reason to learn and know it well, or it would be pretty embarrassing.

Although this story was pretty tough in Greek i thought it would be a little less challenging in English but i was wrong. The Dense and Rich filled text can be short and look easy to read but it took some time to really understand it and tie things together. The story is about the war between the Trojans and the Achaeans, or Greeks, and the fight which all started with the beautiful Helen as a result of the gods. Although this story is all about the war with mortals the Gods seem to play a huge role on the war as-well.

Homer’s The Iliad, like most Greek tales is a little over the top. Within the first couple of pages, unsurprisingly, the Gods already seem to play a big role within the story. Many of the events in the plot could have been easily omitted, because when Achilles and Agamemnon first argue about returning the priest’s daughter, Achilles had an opening and could have killed Agamemnon then and there and could have returned the priest’s daughter to calm the rage of Apollo. However, Athena intervened and told Achilles not to kill him, for he would receive many gifts in the future for sparing his life. That being said, Achilles responds with “If a man obeys the gods, they’re quick to hear his prayers”. (pg 84). So although they fought verbally, they did not engage in combat initially. These events show that the gods will have a large say in what happens to whom and when in the tale, signifying that the gods aren’t just irrelevant supporting characters, but are actually extremely important to the plot.

The fact that the gods are so involved with the lives of humans can be a bit frustrating, because it just adds to the long list of character names, especially in Book One; since many of the characters are being first introduced, it can be a bit overwhelming. I had to actually make a small mental note of each character’s name when first encountered and had to repeat it a couple times, just so I can remember who that person is, when mentioned again! Other than that, the only difficult aspect of The Iliad, so far, would have to be keeping up with dialogue- that requires a lot of attention to detail in order to keep track of who’s speaking.

When thinking back on the poem. I thought about how people perceive the gods and how they are supposed to act. I also thought about the human race, and how we have a history of reacting on our emotions, regardless of whether it was the “right” thing to do. This poem takes place during a war, which is not so far-fetched. However, what is exciting about the poem is that the gods play a part in the conflict that comes with the war. With something so ruthless as war, the gods get involved based off their feelings. From what I understand Zeus only helped in the war because of a prior promise, and he still had uneasiness about helping out because his wife was annoyed. His wife then stopped being annoyed after Zeus threatened to strangle her. I found that interesting when comparing society today to what may have been acceptable in history in terms of domestic relationships.

Then of course in the war, the two men, Achilles and Agamemnon put their own egos ahead of the war. It just made me think of senseless fighting. Those two points were the most interesting to me because despite how godly these figures were, they were not much different than what human act like. It made me question, what exactly makes these figures godly? And just like how the two humans acted off self-interest, so have the gods.

Although, I have previously read parts of the Odyssey and other Greek literature, it was usually done in class with a discussion following. I found it very difficult to read the text and required a lot of time to fully understand the content. Since this is the beginning of the poem, we are being introduced to many different characters, inner conflicts, and relationships, which can be hard to follow. Hopefully, as the story develops, it becomes easier to follow along with the plot.

I find it interesting that throughout history, conflicts of human nature remain the same. Time and time again, men get into arguments that blow up into full-scale wars over such trivial matters, such as women and pride. Achilles and Agamemnon are both extremely powerful men, so of course they are also exceedingly stubborn and arrogant. Claiming women as their prizes for feats in war, they are not willing to give up their precious trophies, because this would mean giving up their honor and glory. They allow their selfish craze to drive their countries into turmoil, rather than come to a consensus and do what is best for their people. It will be amusing to see what other troubles, Achilles, Agamemnon, and the other characters will encounter due to their dynamic personalities.

Book One of The Iliad focuses on the struggle between two of the main characters in Achillies and Agamemnon. Agamemnon has take the daughter of Chryses who is the priest of Apollo. Chryses comes pleading for the return of his daughter Chryseis but after Agamemnon refuses, Chryses asks for Apollo to come down to plague and kill the men in Agamemnon’s army. Achillies argues with Agamemnon about how everything that is going on between the Trojans and the Acheans is all because of Agamemnon and that he wants nothing to do with helping fight the against the Trojans on behalf of Agamemnon’s “honor”. Only when Calchas speaks up, does Agamemnon contemplate giving back Chryseis to Chryses. Calchas is the one who informs Agamemnon as to why his troops are being plagued; so he only agrees to give up Chryseis if he can have  Briseis, former war prize of Achillies. When this is done, Achillies is struck with great despair and asks his mother Thetis to go Zeus and punish Agamemnon and the Acheans for what they have just done to him. Zeus finally agrees although it pits him against his wife Hera who supports the Acheans.

Book one was fairly tough to read for a couple of reasons. One reason was that it was hard to tell who was talking and who they were talking to because so many names were being brought up and quotes were rarely used. Also it was pretty difficult to tell where the setting of certain parts of Book One were talking place.

Reading this was more difficult then I though it would be going into it. Between the amounts of characters there were and the style in which it was written it takes time to understand everything. After one time through the summary helped me understand everything much more and kind of wrap all the ideas I had in my head together. Although I have read the odyssey in the past this was as difficult or even more difficult even with that experience I had in the past. Despite all of that the book was very interesting and sets up the “rage of achilles” that is clearly evident and will continue to grow.

One of the most interesting parts was how much the gods intervened in this and in my opinion are the ones who caused and are in charge of all of this. Apollo sent a plague on the greek camp that killed many people and also how Zeus without his wife’s knowledge decided to help the trojans because of a request from Thetis.  Also what amazes me is how this entire conflict started over a girl and the stubbornness of Agamemnon to give back a girl in which he basically stole because he thought it was a war prize. Achilles because of his failure to get her back refuses to participate in battle for twelve days.  Both Agamemnon and Achilles care very much about there egos and pride rather then whats best for the war. Having said all that I am very interested to see how the rest of the story unfolds.

First though as I read Book One: Is it absolutely necessary that every time they refer to someone they have a brief introduction of what they are known for…example: “among them rose the fighting son of Atreus, lord of the far flung kingdoms, Agamemnon.” I found it really funny and silly, but kind of cool at the same time. Achilles and Agamemnon are SO dramatic and full of themselves, which leads to question one. So at first I really though Agamemnon cared for Chryse, because he seemed to be speaking great things about her, and if I’m not mistaken I think he even said he loved her more then his wife. Until his true colors shine through and he goes on this whole rant about “honor.” Then it clicked in my head, all this war is about is honor and not love. Sure, maybe Menelaus cares for Helen to some extent, but they are fighting this war to return honor to the Achaeans. We see in this book that Agamemnon’s idea of honor is what drives all his decisions and actions. He is willing to let Achaeans die in the hands of Apollo just so he is not cheated out of his prize and what he claims he deserves. This is shown when he is asked to return Chryse back to the priest, and he refuses unless the gods give him an equal in value prize in return.

We see Agamemnon get consumed by his ego and pride, when in return for giving Chryse back he steals Achilles “prize,” which is Briseis. Basically he steals Achilles honor, which enrages him. Because Achilles feels like he has fought in this war and earned his prizes unlike Agamemnon who just commands orders and steals soldier’s rewards. Achilles feels like he has been cheated and disgraced in front of all Achaeans soldiers and he wants to make him pay.

Illiad Book One was very interesting and also confusing. I felt like there were so many things going on. I’ll be honest and say I had to go online and read the summary in order to fully understand it. There were many characters and it was helpful to read about them and understand their part in the story.

People think ten years is a long time to be fighting just over a girl, but it lasted that long because of each side’s stubbornness. It’s about power, pride, and possession. Achilles can’t stand it when his pride gets attacked and the same goes for Agamemnon. In book one, Agamemnon was being stubborn because he kidnapped the priest’s daughter and refuses to give her back to her father. He refers to her as his rightful war prize. The priest prays to Apollo and he sends a plague upon the Greek camp and this result in deaths of many soldiers. Agamemnon was blamed for this plague but he still refused to give back the priest’s daughter until Achilles gives him Briseis as exchange. Being two stubborn powerful people, you can imagine how this goes.

I am looking forward to finishing this whole book and seeing the end results.