Homer's Iliad

[emackenzie]

Hello everyone,

I have a few questions pertaining to contextual and background matters. All of these questions relate to the first page of the first book. Some may contest that such questions are unnecessary to ask as all of this information is available somewhere online. However, I have searched the internet, but I am having difficulty keeping all of the information straight and connecting the dots.

The first line starts out with "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilles..." Which goddess is the writer beseeching to sing?

The rest of the section goes: "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilles, and its devastation, which puts pains thousandfold on the Achaeans, hurled in their multitudes..."
I would like to understand the bold phrase a little better. Does that mean Achilles threw his anger at the multitudes of Achaeans, or does it mean that Achilles threw multitudes of anger?
Is Achilles devastating the Achaeans by directing his anger towards them?

For whom is Achilles fighting; that is, for which army and city is he fighting? I gather that he is fighting against the Trojans, but I would like to know who he is fighting with.

We also see that Apollo is angry at some king, but which king? What did the king do to evoke such anger? Did the king take Chryses' daughter?

I may have more to come.

[Poetaster]

The goddess is just the poet's muse.

Achilles was the king of the Myrmidons, and leader of the Myrmidon faction in the greater Achaean army.

The Achaeans were the united Greeks against Troy, who are being led by Agamemnon who Achilles falls out with in the first book. The reason why Achilles and Agamemnon fall out, which makes Achilles sit out most of the epic in his tent, are fully detailed in the first book, you just have to read it. Hint: Agamemnon takes Achilles' concubine Briseis as compensation, after he is forced by the Greeks to return a Trojan princess to Troy.