Iliad Book VIII

Listen to Book VIII
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Read Along

Try the quiz on characters in the Iliad

Notes and Questions

Zeus bans further divine intervention.
Note the magnificent image of Zeus' scales (80); this will return later.

Zeus signals the Greeks' collapse, but still pities (280ff.): is he confused?

Given that the proem told us that these events are the will of Zeus, what does Zeus really want?

400 Athena and Hera rebel, but Zeus recalls them, with the sudden first account of the fated death of Patroclus. Is this what Achilles and Thetis had in mind?

Why "must? Patroclus die?

580 Hector, flush with glory, decides to camp on the plain; is he being reckless here? Note the beautiful, yet somehow ominous, simile at the end of the book. What effect does this simile have?

Things to Know:

Genre‚ Epic
Literary works are divided into various categories called genres in accordance with their characteristic form and content. The Iliad¹ belongs to the genre of epic. An epic is a long poem which tells a story involving gods, heroes and heroic exploits. Since the epic is by its very nature lengthy, it tends to be rather loosely organized. Not every episode is absolutely necessary to the main story and digressions are not uncommon. You will notice how different in this regard is the genre of drama, in which every episode tends to be essential to the plot and digressions are inappropriate. The events narrated in epic are drawn from legend rather than invented by the poet and are typically of great significance as in the case of the Iliad, which relates an important incident centering around the greatest hero of the Greeks in the Trojan War, the most celebrated war of Greek legend. The epic poet tends to present his narrative impersonally, not drawing attention to himself except occasionally, as in the first line of the Iliad when Homer addresses the goddess who is the Muse² of epic poetry. ¹The word Iliad means "a poem about Ilion [another name for Troy]."
²In Greek myth a Muse is one of the nine daughters of Zeus, who are goddesses of the arts. See line 604 of the first book of the Iliad.