“The wrath of Achilles is my theme, that fatal wrath which, in fulfilment of the will of Zeus, brought the Achaeans so much suffering and sent the gallant souls of many noblemen to Hades, leaving their bodies as carrion for the dogs and passing birds.” So begins E. V. Rieu’s translation (for Penguin Classics in 1950) of Homer’s Iliad, a prose translation of Greek hexameter verse, telling of the story of an incident, over only a few weeks, in the interminable ten-year Trojan war. We […]