The Iliad, Comment #1

Homer's Iliad tells the story of the last stages of the Trojan War. The descriptions of the fighting that I have read so far are not for the faint hearted, being graphic and gruesome in a somehow clinical manner. For example:

Thoas the Aitolian hit Peiros as he ran backward
with the spear in the chest above the nipple, and the bronze point fixed
in the lung, and Thoas standing close dragged out the heavy
spear from his chest, and drawing his sharp sword struck him
in the middle of the belly, and so took the life from him,
yet did not strip his armour,
[Book Four, Lines 527-532a]

Yet this almost overwhelming detail is balanced by the poet's occasional sweeping overview of the situation:

For on that day many men of the Achaians and Trojans
lay sprawled in the dust face downward beside one another.
[Book Four, Lines 543-544]

I am really enjoying the marvellous similes in The Iliad, as they break up the narrative of the poem, giving time to pause and appreciate the rhythmic flow of the language. I am reading in translation, and Richmond Lattimore has done a fantastic job of maintaining the poem's metre while also using some glisteningly gorgeous words. I was particularly struck by this passage, just prior to the engagement in general fighting between the Achaian (aka Danaan) and Trojan warriors (that was described in the quotes above):

As when along the thundering beach the surf of the sea strikes
beat upon beat as the west wind drives it onward; far out
cresting first on the open water, it drives thereafter
to smash roaring along the dry land, and against the rock jut
bending breaks itself into crests spewing back the salt wash;
so thronged beat upon beat the Danaans' close battalions
steadily into battle, with each of the lords commanding
his own men; and these went silently, you would not think
all these people with voices kept in their chests were marching;
silently, in fear of their commanders; and upon all
glittered as they marched the shining armour they carried.
But the Trojans, as sheep in a man of possessions' steading
stand in their myriads waiting to be drained of their white milk
and bleat interminably as they hear the voice of their lambs, so
the crying of the Trojans went up through the wide army. [...]
and Terror drove them and Fear, and Hate whose wrath is relentless.
[Book Four, Lines 422-436, 440]

Now that was poetry.