"Anger be now your song, immortal one," is the opening line of the Iliad, which proves the fact that anger plays a huge role in Greek literature (1.1). Oedipus Rex, Creon states, "By exile or death, blood for blood. It was Murder that brought the plague-wind on the city" (Prologue. 104-105). Despite the differences in the Iliad and Oedipus Rex anger's constant theme is glaringly apparent in both these classic works.
             Within the opening scene of the Iliad violence is the extreme tone within the epic story. The war between the Trojans and the Greeks has been a stalemate for nearly ten years, and it opens to the argument between Achilles and Agamemnon. As the battle continues the death of Patroclus sends Achilles into a fit of rage, vowing to avenge the death of his friend.
             Continued proof of this theme is in the titles of the books. Book one is entitled "The Quarrel", "The Death of Hector" entitles the twenty-second book. Without the anger in the epic Iliad, there would be no plot or sequence to the story. The Iliad is the telling of the Greeks war with the Trojans and the struggles of anger and hatred within that war. Andromache states, "...for a harsh master, or an Achaean solider will grip you by the arm and hurl you down from a tower here to a miserable death--out of anger for a brother, a father, or even a son that Hector killed..." This line barely touches the anger and the pain within the Iliad, yet it shows a faithful wife's thoughts of what took her husband from her life.
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