"Thus the immortals have woven our lives so that we, miserable men / live to endure such torments...." (The Iliad book 24, ln .613-614) This pessimistic explanation of the human condition was a tradition observed and preserved by the ancient Greeks through the composition of Homer's Iliad. This statement, made by the divine Achilles to King Priam in the last chapter of the work, provides the reader with a contextual summary of what the Greeks believed was their role in the cosmos. Homer's Iliad, among many other themes contained in the poem, “is an anthropocentric epic expounding the ancient Greeks' views of man and his relationships” (Clarke 129). Homer demonstrates both pious and customary behaviors, as well as impious and rebellious ones, to illustrate man's friendly and contradictory relationships. Few relationships composed by Homer are exclusively one or the other. Through the composition, Homer reflects on the relationships between man and destiny, man and the gods, and between man and his species (dominated, subordinated, and equal). All these intricate relationships share a common thread; they bring torment on man's life. Man's connection with destiny is not simple according to Homer. Although fate is never prevailed in the poem, it is tempted many times, both by the gods who wish to intervene on behalf of their favorite mortals, and by man himself. Zeus contemplates the challenge of fate when the fated death of his son Sarpedon comes at the hands of Patroclus. Zeus mourns the "cruel fate" and laments, "My heart is broken in two...Shall I pick it up now, while it is still alive...? Or finally strike it down at the hands of Patroclus?" (lib.16, ln.514-21). Due to Hera's protests, Zeus bows to the...... middle of paper ......ods and their kin. And it was through these challenges that torment befell their lives. This was the fate of the human condition. "And fate? No living man has ever escaped it" (book 6, ln.582). Works cited and consulted: Bespaloff, Rachel. On the Iliad. Trans. Mary McCarthy. New York: Pantheon Books, 1947. Clarke, Howard. Homer's Readers: A Historical Introduction to the Iliad and the Odyssey. Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1981. Goodrich, Norma. Hero myths. New York: Orion Press, 1962. Homer: Iliad. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1990.Richardson, Nicholas. The Iliad: a commentary. vol. VI: books 21-24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993.Willcock, Malcolm M. A Companion to the Iliad: based on the translation by Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976