Recent Reading: The Iliad

This summer I participated in a summer reading group where about six of us met once a week and read The Iliad in translation. For those unfamiliar with the myth (Greek word for story), the book is about the Trojan War and the glories earned on the battlefield (KLEA ANDRON or glories of men). There are many graphic descriptions of battles, violence, and human suffering. The book ends with three women (Hecuba, mother of the now dead Trojan warrior, Hector; Andromache, wife of Hector; and Helen, the Greek woman who’s kidnapping started the war) singing songs of lamentation. In the passage I quoted, Andromache laments that she will soon be enslaved and her son, Astyanax, will either end up a slave or be murdered.