War And The Iliad (New York Review Books Classics)

"War and the Iliad joins together for the first time in a single volume Simone Weil's ferocious lament ('The Iliad or the Poem of Force'), with her less well known contemporary Rachel Bespaloff's antiphonal meditation on conflict, pacifism and justice. Mary McCarthy was the original translator, and her luminous work is reprinted here." -- Marina Warner, The Times Literary Supplement "Book of the Year" "Written just before and during the second world war, these two long essays unearth a set of moral teachings antecedent to the Gospels, estranged by history but profoundly relevant to our time. Homer's Iliad is remarkable, the essayists agree, for presenting warring sides with equal compassion. As Weil writes, only the person 'who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how not to respect it', is capable of justice and love.