SOURCE: Taplin, Oliver. “The Past beneath the Present.” In Homeric Soundings: The Shaping of the Iliad, pp. 83-109. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

In the following excerpt, Taplin examines broad ethical issues in the Iliad and the epic's narrative form, focusing specifically on temporality, and the guilt of Helen and Paris.

3.1 Before the Beginning: Aulis and the Troad

… ‘Child, why are you crying? What pain has touched your heart? Tell me, do not hide it inside you, so that both of us can know.’

With a heavy groan swift-footed Achilleus said to her: ‘You know. What need for me to tell you all when you know it? We had gone to Thebe, Eëtion's sacred city. We sacked it, and brought all the spoils here. The sons of the Achaians made proper division of all the rest among themselves, and chose for the son of Atreus as his gift of...