Homer's The Iliad implies a great deal about the relation of human beings. The Iliad and The Odyssey are the oldest existing works of European literature and Homer has been acclaimed as the father of all poetry: therefore it is only natural that the poem speaks to the myriad ways in which humans relate to each other. Homer is also able to show how human beings correspond to nature (i.e., animals, elements, natural landscapes). The Iliad concentrates on a three-day period during the Trojan War, deal-ing with the wrath of Achilles against King Agamemnon. The battle episodes show man against the backdrop of nature: he must fight and endure the hardships of combat and this is played out in the elements and on the landscape of Troy.
It would be instructive to first cover the territory that The Iliad deals with most exclusively. The poem dramatizes the struggles of the gods and the mortals during this time in the l0-year siege of Troy. The focus is on Achilles who, after an argument with Agamemnon, refuses to continue his battle. After Achilles' friend, Patroclus, is killed by Hector, who is prince of Troy, Achilles resumes his fighting and leads the invasion to kill Hector. He returns Hector's body to King Priam for a hero's funeral. Homer uses the siege of Troy to show human relation-ships under the stress of battle, where their true character is most likely to emerge.
Achilles is given a choice early on in his career, and through this career it is determined how he will relate to other human beings, and to the elements, landscape, and general environment around him. His choice is to either remain in Greece and live to old age without glory, or to go to Troy, become famous on the battlefield, and die young. He of course chooses the latter, and in doing so he defines the elements and land-scape that will serve as the backdrop for his heroics.
In Book XXII Hector is dying and he tells the man who has mortally wounded him, Achilles,...