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![words of wonder level 174 words of wonder level 174](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qa4Js5A8ukk/maxresdefault.jpg)
Wrath (μῆνις), the emotion which is held up in the poem’s first line as the essential motivation of the Iliad’s entire narrative, and which is at the forefront of Achilles’ mind from the moment he loses Briseis, finally gives way to pity over the course of this encounter.
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The climactic meeting of Achilles and Priam in the middle of the Iliad’s final book has long been considered one of the most moving episodes in the entire Greek literary tradition. And Priam entreated him, and said this to him: ‘Remember your father, godlike Achilles, of similar age to me, on the deadly threshold of old age’. And just as when suffocating madness has come over a man, who has killed someone in his own country and comes to the country of other people, to the house of a wealthy man, and wonder takes hold of those who look at him, in this way Achilles wondered seeing godlike Priam, and the others wondered as well, and looked at each other. Unnoticed by them great Priam came in, and then after standing next to him took Achilles’ knees in his hands and kissed his hands, the terrible man-slaying hands which had slaughtered many of his sons. And Achilles had just turned away from his food, from eating and drinking, and the table still lay beside him. He found him there, but his companions sat far off two of them alone, warrior Automedon and Alkimos, scion of Ares, were busily attending to him. And the old man went straight to the house where Achilles dear to Zeus was accustomed to sit.