Illustrating the Iliad
The assignment for this project was to read a classic of some sort, and make illustrations based on what we had read that week. We weren't given a timeline for this project going into it, but it will be wrapped up in the next week or so. I chose to read Homer's Iliad, I had always wanted to read the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this project was an excuse to be able to read during my busy semester.
"At once he spoke/ To Athena with these winged words: 'Hurry on into/ The gathered host of Acheans and Trojans and find/ Some way of making the Trojans break their oaths/ Of truce by an act of violence against the triumphant,/ Exulting Acheans.'
So saying, he started Athena,/ Who needed no urging, and down she went darting from the peaks/ Of Olympus. Like a shooting star that the son of crooked/ Cronos sends with a long trail of fire as a sign/ To sailors at sea or a huge encampment of soldiers,/ So Pallas Athena shot down to earth right into/ The midst of innumerable men, and all who saw/ Were astonished, both horse-breaking Trojans and bronze-clad/ Acheans."
"Helen she found in the hall, weaving/ A web of double width and of iridescent/ Purple. And in it she wove not a few of the battles/ That the horse-breaking Trojans and bronze-clad Acheans had suffered/ At the hands of Ares on her account."
"on the left of the fighting, the impetuous Ares/ Sat, his sharp spear propped on a cloud and his pair/ Of swift horses at hand."
"But Hector,/ You go to the city and speak to our mother. Tell her/ To gather the noble women and go to the temple/ Of bright-eyed Athena high on the fortified hill./ And let her take with her the finest, most flowing robe/ In the palace, the one she prefers to all others. Then,/ When the holy doors have been opened by means of the key,/ Let her lay the robe on the knees of fair-haired Athena/ And promise to sacrifice there in her temple twelve yearling/ Heifers untouched by the goad, if only the goddess/ Will pity our town, our wives and little children,/ And keep Diomedes away from holy Troy,"
