Iliad Book 24

This is a translation of the twenty-fourth and last book of Homer’s Iliad, continuing and completing the sequence of books already available.


In this book Iliad achieves what is arguably one of the most intense psychological studies in all literature, when Priam confronts Akhilleus in his own camp in order to recover the body of his loved son Hektor and to give it a proper burial. In the course of this Akhilleus manages to show that he has progressed from the insensate anger of the first book to achieve some insight into the nature of human existence. 


The poem concludes with the cremation and burial of Hektor.