Daniel’s Reviews > The Iliad > Status Update

“I fear the Greeks may make us pay the debt
of yesterday. Beside these ships there is
a man whose thirst for war is never sated,
and I do not believe that he will stay completely out of battle any longer.”

“From the high heaven he sent down thick drops
of gushing blood, because it was his will to send so many living men to Hades.”

“Release the rage that hurts your heart. Do everything or nothing, death still comes.”

“I have been watching for chances to kill the enemy. I have shot eight long-pointed arrows, and each has found its mark in the flesh of some brave young warrior. But here's a mad dog I cannot hit.”

“Dear heart, I beg you, don't distress yourself too much. No one is going to send me down to Hades before my time, though death itself, I think, is something no man, coward or hero, can escape, once he has come into this world.”

“Fellow warriors, be men. Keep your courage up and in the heat of the battle fear nothing but dishonour in each other's eyes. When warriors fear disgrace, more are saved than killed.
There's no honour or salvation to be found in flight.”

“Because I have shot at him already - and I hit him in the right shoulder, clean through the plate of armour. I certainly thought that would see him off to Hades. Yet somehow I failed to kill him. So perhaps it is some resentful god, after all.”

“The men from Adresteia and the land of Apaesus, from Pityeia and the steep slopes of Tereia, were led by Adrestus and Amphius in his linen body-protection, the two sons of Merops of Percote, who was the ablest prophet of his day and had forbidden his sons to go off to the killing fields. But they would not listen to him: the demons of death led them on.”