Iliad I · The Wrath of Achilles

The Achaeans have been camped before Troy for ten years. Apollo’s priest Chryses comes to ransom his daughter Chryseis, but Agamemnon refuses and insults him. The priest prays to Apollo, and the god sends a plague through the camp. Achilles calls an assembly; the seer Calchas says the god will not relent until the girl is returned without ransom.

Agamemnon gives Chryseis back but takes Briseis, Achilles’ prize, to replace her. Achilles is within a breath of killing him; Athena appears and restrains his hand. He withdraws from battle and asks Thetis to appeal to Zeus. Zeus nods, and the promise that the Trojans will win until Achilles is honoured sets the whole poem in motion.

The wrath sing, goddess, of Peleus' son, Achilles, that destructive wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans, and sent forth to Hades many valiant souls of heroes, and made them themselves spoil for dogs and every bird; thus the plan of Zeus came to fulfillment, [5] from the time when first they parted in strife Atreus' son, king of men, and brilliant Achilles. — Homer, Iliad I.1ff., trans. A. T. Murray (Loeb; Perseus Digital Library, CC BY-SA 4.0).