Robert Graves' Proem to The Iliad

Welcome back to The Daily Poem, the podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson and today is Wednesday, March 4, 2026.

Today's poem is by Homer, the great blind poet of Ancient Greece, in collaboration with

translated by Robert Graves.

It is the poem or opening lines to the Iliad.

I'll read it once, offer a few comments and read it one more time.

Seeing mountain goddess sing through me that anger, which most ruinously inflamed Achilles

Pelius' son, and which, before the tale was done, had glutted hell with champions,

bold, stern spirits by the thousandfold, ravens and dogs, their corpses ate.

For thus did Zeus, who watched their fate, see his resolve, first taken when proud

at a M.M. non-king of men, an insult on Achilles cast, achieve accomplishment at last.

This rendering of the opening lines of the Iliad comes from Graves, 1959 edition, which

he titled The Anger of Achilles, which was an interesting project, if you can get your

hands on it and take a look.

It was a mixture of verse and prose translation, so a good majority of the Iliad, he renders

into prose.

It's attractive prose, but it's prose.

But significant passages, he singles out for a more careful, more ornamented verse translation.

And if you think of it as maybe a kind of gateway translation that could draw in a reader

who might not be interested in reading 22 books of poetry, and yet give them a taste

of the beauty of this poem when it's rendered in verse, then I could get behind the project

in theory.

It's a good stepping stone, at least, to a full verse translation.

Below the Iliad is the greatest poem ever written about a war.

It has also been called the greatest anti-war poem ever written.

For a full treatment of that idea, you can read Simone Vays' monograph, the Iliad poem

of force, that's an excellent, excellent short treatment of this theory that Homer is,

in many ways, writing something very subversive.

But you can see hints of that even in the opening lines here.

What is it that the Trojan War, or this culminating moment in the Trojan War, accomplishes?

It fills hell with heroes.

It takes the noblest and mightiest men living on the earth at the time, and it sends them

to the underworld.

And why?

For what noble purpose, Homer says, it is because of the inflamed anger of one man, Achilles,

and the pride of his rival in honor, and Gamemnon.

And whether every reader is always conscious of this tension that is introduced right in

the opening lines here, I think it's one of the things that makes all of the Iliad so

gripping and compelling, because there are many scenes of great heroism, great nobility

that unfold on the battlefield, and battle field adjacent throughout the poem.

And they're made all the more poignant because we know, at least implicitly, that they're

happening against the backdrop of this senseless and narrowly selfish conflict that's playing

out.

Yes, there is the broader context of Helen, of course, but it's notable that Homer does

not name her in these opening lines.

He frames the entire conflict of the poem in her absence and cuts right to the heart

of what is really the cause of most human conflict.

Here's the poem one more time.

Seeing mountain goddess sing through me that anger which most aruonously inflamed Achilles'

Pelius' son, and which before the tale was done had glutted hell with champions, bold,

stern spirits by the thousandfold, ravens and dogs, their corpse is eight.

For thus did Zeus who watched their fate see his resolve, first taken when Proud Agamemnon,

King of Men, an insult on Achilles' cast, achieve accomplishment at last.

This has been the Daily Poem, thanks for listening, we'll be back tomorrow with more poetry

for you.

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For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy reading.