The Anger of Achilles The Iliad

'You are the one whom I most detest you, with your endless pursuit of quarrels, wars, battles!' War is raging between the Greeks and the Trojans, and Achilles, the great champion of the Greek army, is angrily sulking in his tent and refusing to fight after a furious rove with his commander, Agamemnon. But when the Trojan prince Hector kills Achilles' beloved friend, Achilles plunges back into the battle to seek his bloody revenge even though he knows it will bring about his own doom. Robert Graves's gripping retelling of The Iliad uses dark, satirical humour to take a revered epic back yo its roots as popular entertainment, portraying a world of quarrelling kings and tarnished heroes, who leave suffering women behind them and are watched over by cunning gods and goddesses. Interspersing clear, vigorous prose with lyrics, this brilliantly readable translation is accompanied by an introduction discussing The Iliad as part of the bardic tradition and shedding light on Homer's cynical view of power. This edition also contains a map of the Ancient Mediterranean world.

Homer, born around 725 BC, was the first Greek writer whose work survives. Both epic poems attributed to him-ùThe Iliad and The Odyssey-ùare foundational texts in the Western canon.

Robert Graves (1895-û1985) is the author of I, Claudius and several other historical novels, a dictionary of Greek mythology, and an autobiography, Goodbye to All That. He also translated works by Apuleius, Lucan, and Suetonius for Penguin Classics.