Character

Achilles

The greatest of the Greek warriors · dead at Troy by his own choice

The shade of Achilles seated among the dead in magnificent armour, helmet set aside, his head bowed onto his forearm.
The shade of Achilles seated among the dead in magnificent armour, helmet set aside, his head bowed onto his forearm.

The greatest of the Greek warriors, dead at Troy exactly as he chose — a short life with undying glory. Meeting him among the shades, Odysseus tries to console him by saying he rules the dead; Achilles answers that he would rather be a landless labourer working for a poor man on earth than king over all the perished. Coming from the hero of the Iliad, it is the most quoted line in Homer and the flat refusal of everything the warrior code promised.

His line about preferring to be a poor man's hired hand rather than king of the dead is the flat refusal of everything the Iliad promised him.

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