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The Iliad

Homer · Translated by Samuel Butler, 1898

Homer

The Iliad

Translated by Samuel Butler, 1898

What this is

Fifty-one days in the tenth year of the siege of Troy, beginning with a quarrel over a captive woman and ending with the burial of Hector. Nothing in it is about the wooden horse or the fall of the city; those are other poems.

How it is set

One leaf per book, with the sections numbered inside it as Long numbers them. A section of Marcus is often three lines, and a page holding three lines is not a page.

What is not here

Notes. These books have the text and nothing else at present — no map, no lives, no commentary. The Gospel of St Luke shows what an annotated book looks like on this shelf, and these will follow it. An empty heading is better than invented filler.

The 24 books

  1. I The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles—Achilles withdraws from the war, and sends his… 1 sections
  2. II Jove sends a lying dream to Agamemnon, who thereon calls the chiefs in assembly, and proposes… 1 sections
  3. III Alexandria, also called Paris, challenges Menelaus—Helen and Priam view the Achaeans from the… 1 sections
  4. IV A quarrel in Olympus—Minerva goes down and persuades Fandarus to violate the oaths by wounding… 1 sections
  5. V The exploits of Diomed, who, though wounded by Pandarus, continues fighting—He kills Pandarus… 1 sections
  6. VI Glaucus and Diomed—The story of Bellerophon—Hector and… 1 sections
  7. VII Hector and Ajax fight—Hector is getting worsted when night comes on and parts them—They… 1 sections
  8. VIII Jove forbids the gods to interfere further—There is an even fight till midday, but then Jove… 1 sections
  9. IX The Embassy to… 1 sections
  10. X Ulysses and Diomed go out as spies, and meet Dolon, who gives them information: they then kill… 1 sections
  11. XI In the forenoon the fight is equal, but Agamemnon turns the fortune of the day towards the… 1 sections
  12. XII The Trojans and their allies break the wall, led on by… 1 sections
  13. XIII Neptune helps the Achaeans—The feats of Idomeneus—Hector at the… 1 sections
  14. XIV Agamemnon proposes that the Achaeans should sail home, and is rebuked by Ulysses—Juno beguiles… 1 sections
  15. XV Jove awakes, tells Apollo to heal Hector, and the Trojans again become… 1 sections
  16. XVI Fire being now thrown on the ship of Protesilaus, Patroclus fights in the armour of Achilles—He… 1 sections
  17. XVII The fight around the body of… 1 sections
  18. XVIII The grief of Achilles over Patroclus—The visit of Thetis to Vulcan and the armour that he made… 1 sections
  19. XIX Achilles is reconciled with Agamemnon, puts on the armour which Vulcan had made him, and goes… 1 sections
  20. XX The gods hold a council and determine to watch the fight, from the hill Callicolone, and the… 1 sections
  21. XXI The fight between Achilles and the river Scamander—The gods fight among themselves—Achilles… 1 sections
  22. XXII The death of… 1 sections
  23. XXIII The funeral of Patroclus, and the funeral… 1 sections
  24. XXIV Priam ransoms the body of Hector—Hector’s… 1 sections
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Text: Homer, The Iliad — Samuel Butler’s prose translation, 1898, public domain, from Project Gutenberg ebook 2199, set unaltered. Butler translated into prose on purpose, holding that a verse translation of Homer into English could only be a poem about Homer. This is that prose.