Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
Sing, goddess, the ruinous wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus,
This is an interactive study application for learning and reciting the opening lines of Homer's Iliad. Use the arrow buttons (or your keyboard's left/right arrows, or swipe left/right on mobile) to step through the text line-by-line. Click the Play button on the video to hear the correct reconstructed ancient pronunciation and pitch accents.
The metrical scansion below the text breaks the line into six feet (dactylic hexameter). Long syllables (—) are shown in cool grey, while short syllables (⏑) are in warm red. This helps you follow the rhythm of the poem.
Click the Metronome button (stopwatch icon) below the video to play the metrical beats out loud and visually follow along. You can click the Options button (sliders icon) to change the English translation style or adjust the speed of the metronome.
You can click any word in the parsing grid to view a deep-dive popup containing its dictionary lemma, grammatical parsing, and Proto-Indo-European etymology.
Need help with sounds? Check out the Greek Pronunciation Guide.
Note: I am just beginning my journey learning Ancient Greek and rely on a variety of resources to build this canvas. Bug reports and corrections are welcome.
This project is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). The full source code is freely available on GitHub.