The Iliad & The Odyssey

The first poem is called the Iliad. It is a story about a war. For nearly ten years, a Greek army sat outside the walls of a city called Troy. They wanted to take the city back after a Trojan prince took a Greek queen, Helen.

The best Greek fighter was a hero called Achilles. He was very strong, but also very proud. One day the Greek king, Agamemnon, took something from Achilles. Achilles was so angry that he stopped fighting and stayed in his tent. Without him, the Greeks began to lose.

Then Achilles' best friend went to fight — and a brave Trojan prince, Hector, killed him. Now Achilles was full of sadness and anger. He went back to the war and killed Hector. But at the end, Hector's old father came to Achilles and asked for his son's body. And Achilles cried with him. The Iliad does not show the end of the war. It stops here, with a quiet, sad moment.

The second poem is called the Odyssey. Now the war is over. A clever Greek hero, Odysseus, wants to go home to his small island, Ithaca. The journey should be short. But it takes him ten more years!

On the way, Odysseus meets many dangers. He meets a giant with only one eye, and he must escape from him. He meets a woman with magic who turns his men into pigs. He sails past monsters in the sea. A beautiful woman keeps him on her island for years and says, "Stay here, and never die." But Odysseus says no. He wants to go home more than he wants to live for ever.

At home, his wife Penelope waits for him. Many men say, "Odysseus is dead. Marry me!" But she is clever, like her husband. She says she will choose a man when she finishes making a big cloth — and every night she quietly takes the cloth apart again. At last Odysseus comes home. He does not win with his body; he wins because he is patient and waits for the right moment.

These poems are about 3,000 years old — much older than most stories we know. A poet called Homer is the name we give to them. But we are not sure who Homer really was. Maybe one person, maybe many people. For a very long time, no one wrote the poems down. People sang them and remembered them.

Was there a real war at Troy? We are not sure. But long ago, people found the ruins of a real old city in Turkey, in the same place as the story. So maybe the poems remember something true.

Today, the story is still very popular. In 2026, the famous director Christopher Nolan made a big film of the Odyssey. It was one of the most expensive films ever, with famous actors like Matt Damon. Many people went to see it. After 3,000 years, people still love this story — first as a song, then as a book, and now as a film.