Book 24

Abstract

Abstract Book 24 features Priam’s successful effort to ransom back the corpse of Hector from Achilles. This chapter discusses the following items under the category of themes: sleeplessness, fasting, self-defilement, anger, and other manifestations of grief; the feast of Achilles and Priam and other rituals that restore normality; the emotion of pity (eleos) and the expression of care (kēdos); the parent-child relationship; and events important to the origin and end of Troy and the Trojan War mentioned in book 24, particularly the judgment of Paris. It discusses the following under the category of poetics: structure and closure; cleansing and purification (katharsis); and the laments of Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen.