Homer

Have you heard of the Trojan Horse? A long time ago, during a war between the Greeks and the Trojans, the Greeks built a giant, wooden horse and hid some of their soldiers inside. The Trojans thought that the Greeks had gone, and that they had left a horse behind as a gift for their war goddess Athena. So the Trojans brought the horse into the city as a war trophy. But when the Trojans had fallen asleep, the Greek soldiers jumped out of the horse.

Among them was the hero Odysseus. He opened the city gates, and let the Greek army in. The tale of the Trojan Horse is one of many in an ancient story told in verse form. Like a long poem. We call it: an epic.

The name of this epic is The Odyssey; and it tells how Odysseus - or Ulysses as he's more often called in English - is traveling home from the Trojan War. It also tells of earlier events, in flashbacks, including this story about the Trojan horse. But there is also another epic that deals with the war and what happened before Odysseus' journey home: The Iliad. The many verses in The Iliad and The Odyssey were first told by mouth. But about 2700 years ago - in the eighth century BCE - they were collected and written down.

If this was done by one person or many, nobody knows really. In fact no one knows who did collect them. But the author -- or the collector of the verses -- is commonly known as "Homer". The discussion among scholars about whether or not Homer existed has been pretty heated and is called "The Homeric Question". For some reason he is also imagined as blind.

So the Iliad and the Odyssey are poetic pieces of writing, but the verses don't rhyme. However the syllables and lines are arranged in a special rhythm. They are written in metre. Can you imagine what it must have been like in the time before these stories were written down? A time when tales were told in the warm silence around the fire.

When everyone was eager and curious to hear if someone would add something new to the story, maybe change the outcome... ... or even who would die. How could they remember stories that long? Well, this was partly thanks to the rhythm. The metre made it easier to recall and retell the events.

The metre used in the Iliad and the Odyssey is called hexameter. Do you want to know what it sounds like? This is the first line in The Iliad: "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilles" Can you remember the words more easily with the help of the rhythm? It's very hard to do but listen once more and then read it out loud for yourself. "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilles" That was tricky, wasn't it. But why should you care about an old blind writer that no one bothers to read any longer?

Or even knows if he existed at all? Well, because the stories from the Iliad and The Odyssey have been an inspiration to writers and artists of all time -- not to mention Hollywood directors -- so you are bound to meet stories, symbols, and words from these epics in your everyday life. The words "Trojan Horse", or simply "Trojans", for example, are used to refer to computer viruses that sneak into your computer to destroy, or do something that you don't want them to do. And the word "odyssey" has come to mean a long exploring trip. Do you remember what hexameter sounds like?

Easy! "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilles"... Ooops