The Iliad

The root of Achilles’s name in Greek is akhos (άχος), meaning sorrow or pain; his name roughly means “man of many sorrows.” This correlates with his representation in the Iliad. From the first word of poem, it is evident that Achilles is suffering. After his disastrous argument with Agamemnon, he withdraws from battle, appearing infrequently but significantly until the final books. Achilles has been portrayed as inflexible because he refuses the embassy and holds tightly to both grief and rage throughout the poem. Yet the Achilles readers/listeners encounter in Book 1 is markedly different from the one they are left with in Book 24.

Achilles begins the poem preoccupied with how he is honored and furious when he feels disrespected. The implication is that he has fought efficiently and exceptionally, above all other Achaeans, and is a source of terror for the Trojans, but Achilles is not fighting for a personal cause. He is at Troy because it will lead him to fame, in ways he may not know or understand at the beginning of the poem, by way of the Iliad. The source of his fame becomes, ironically, the story of his unquenchable rage and grief; it is the fame of going too far and being humbled, having to accept that he is not a god.