Calchas, a powerful seer, stands up and offers his services. Though he fears retribution from Agamemnon, Calchas reveals the plague as a vengeful and strategic move by Chryses and Apollo. Agamemnon flies into a rage and says that he will return Chryseis only if Achilles gives him Briseis as compensation. The men argue, and Achilles threatens to withdraw from battle and take his people, the Myrmidons, back home to Phthia. Achilles stands poised to draw his sword and kill the Achaean commander when the goddess Athena, sent by Hera, the queen of the gods, appears to him and checks his anger.
Achilles prays to his mother, the sea-nymph Thetis, to ask Zeus , king of the gods, to punish the Achaeans. He relates to her the tale of his quarrel with Agamemnon, and she promises to take the matter up with Zeus—who owes her a favor—as soon as he returns from a thirteen-day period of feasting with the Aethiopians.
Meanwhile, the Achaean commander Odysseus is navigating the ship that Chryseis has boarded. When he lands, he returns the maiden and makes sacrifices to Apollo. Chryses, overjoyed to see his daughter, prays to the god to lift the plague from the Achaean camp. Apollo acknowledges his prayer, and Odysseus returns to his comrades.
But the end of the plague on the Achaeans only marks the beginning of worse suffering. Ever since his quarrel with Agamemnon, Achilles has refused to participate in battle, and, after twelve days, Thetis makes her appeal to Zeus, as promised. Zeus is reluctant to help the Trojans, for his wife, Hera , favors the Greeks, but he finally agrees. Hera becomes livid when she discovers that Zeus is helping the Trojans, but her son Hephaestus persuades her not to plunge the gods into conflict over the mortals.
Like other ancient epic poems, The Iliad presents its subject clearly from the outset. Although the Trojan War as a whole figures prominently in the work, this larger conflict ultimately provides the text with background rather than subject matter.
By the time Achilles and Agamemnon enter their quarrel, the Trojan War has been going on for nearly ten years. Instead, it scrutinizes the origins and the end of this wrath, thus narrowing the scope of the poem from a larger conflict between warring peoples to a smaller one between warring individuals.
But while the poem focuses most centrally on the rage of a mortal, it also concerns itself greatly with the motivations and actions of the gods. Even before Homer describes the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, he explains that Apollo was responsible for the conflict.
In general, the gods in the poem participate in mortal affairs in two ways. First, they act as external forces upon the course of events, as when Apollo sends the plague upon the Achaean army.
Second, they represent internal forces acting on individuals, as when Athena, the goddess of wisdom, prevents Achilles from abandoning all reason and persuades him to cut Agamemnon with words and insults rather than his sword. But while the gods serve a serious function in partially determining grave matters of peace and violence, life and death, they also serve one final function—that of comic relief.
Their intrigues, double-dealings, and inane squabbles often appear humorously petty in comparison with the wholesale slaughter that pervades the mortal realm. The bickering between Zeus and Hera, for example, provides a much lighter parallel to the heated exchange between Agamemnon and Achilles. Indeed, in their submission to base appetites and shallow grudges, the gods of The Iliad often seem more prone to human folly than the human characters themselves.
What caused the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles? Achilles called for the Greek army leaders to meet to convince Agamemnon to let Chryseis go. A conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles takes place over a woman named Briseis.
Achilles stops fighting for the Greeks because Agamemnon took away his prize, Briseis. Fearing of defeat to the Trojans, Agamemnon summons Ajax , Odysseus, and Phoenix to persuade Achilles into rejoining the battle by means of offering gifts and the return of Briseis.
The real conflict on the story was not external, but in fact internal. With Agamemnon and Achilles, their main internal issues were pride, honor and stubbornness.
Hector occupies a special place for his sterling qualities. However, both Achilles and Hector are great warriors for their armies. Achilles commands the Greek army, while Hector commands the Trojan army. They are heroes of their respective sides. Finally, Athena deludes Hektor into believing that he will have assistance against Achilles. He turns and stands his ground.
But before the two heroes fight, Hektor attempts to make Achilles promise to treat his body with respect if he is killed, but Achilles is so full of fury that he refuses. Patroclus killed many Trojans and Trojan allies, including a son of Zeus, Sarpedon.
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