Homer's twin epics, together in one volume. Presented here in the Alexander Pope translations.
The Iliad tells the story of the Trojan War. Paris, the prince of Troy, has stolen off with Helen, the beautiful wife of Menelaus, the King of Sparta. He leads a coalition of Greek states in a ten-year-long siege of Troy, with the poem picking up the story in the tenth year, and telling of the rivalry between Agamemnon and Achilles.
In The Odyssey, in the aftermath of the events of the Trojan war, Ulysses sets sail with his men for the shores of Ithaca, his home, but a failure to properly honour the gods enrages them, and Poseidon exacts revenge on Ulysses, keeping him from his destination and forcing him to wander the world. Meanwhile Penelope, Ulysses's wife, must fend off the advances of a group of miscreant suitors who are convinced that her husband must have perished.
