Question

from the iliad of homer
translated by richard lattimore
book twenty-two
so along the city the trojans, who had run like fawns, dried
the sweat off from their bodies and drank and slaked their thirst, leaning
along the magnificent battlements. meanwhile the achaians
sloping their shields across their shoulders came close to the rampart.
but his deadly fate held hektor shackled, so that he stood fast
in front of ilion and the skaian gates. now phoibos
apollo spoke aloud to peleion: “why, son of peleus,
do you keep after me in the speed of your feet, being mortal
while i am an immortal god? even yet you have not
seen that i am a god, but strain after me in your fury.
now hard fighting with the trojans whom you stampeded means nothing
to you. they are crowded in the city, but you bent away here.
you will never kill me. i am not one who is fated.”

deeply vexed achilleus of the swift feet spoke to him:
“you have balked me, striker from afar, most malignant of all gods,
when you turned me here away from the rampart, else many trojans
would have caught the soil in their teeth before they got back into ilion.
now you have robbed me of great glory, and rescued these people
lightly, since you have no retribution to fear hereafter.
else i would punish you, if only the strength were in me.”

he ended and stood away against the city with high thoughts

read the excerpt from the iliad of homer.
“ah me, this is a man beloved whom now my eyes watch
being chased around the wall; my heart is mourning for hektor
who has burned in my honour many thigh pieces of oxen
on the peaks of ida with all her folds …”

who is speaking and revealing his perspective in this excerpt?

option: a parent
option: .a hero (typo likely, intended as \a hero\)
option: a hero’s rival

Explanation:

To determine the speaker, we analyze the excerpt. The text mentions mourning for Hektor who burned thigh pieces of oxen in the speaker's honour. In The Iliad, Priam is Hektor's father, and the perspective of a parent mourning for their child (Hektor) fits. The other options: a hero (unlikely as the tone is of mourning, not heroic action) and a hero’s rival (no indication of rivalry here, but of parental grief). So the speaker is a parent.

Answer:

a parent