Homer

Melantho, a female slave in Odysseus' household, is called a 'little dog' by Odysseus.

Odysseus grabbed her throat with his right hand and told her he 'will not spare [her] when [he] kill[s] the rest, / the other slave women, although [she was] / [his] nurse'.

So please go home and tend to your own tasks, / the distaff and the loom, and keep the women / working hard as well.

For the winner a large tripod made to stride a fire / and worth a dozen oxen, so the soldiers reckoned. / For the loser he led a woman through their midst, / worth four, they thought, and skilled in many crafts.

Agamemnon…cuts off his arms, and then kicks the body to send it rolling into the throng of Trojan fighters, 'like a log'.

Peneleus, hits a Trojan in the face. He then cuts off the head and lifts it into the air at the end of a spear, causing the other Trojans to tremble in fear.

When Achilles finally does defeat Hector, he ties the body to his chariot...then drags it back to the Greek camp. Once there, the Greeks flock around the dead Trojan hero and proceed to stab the corpse and mock the dead hero, saying how now he is much softer to handle.

The gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.

And bid your handmaids to do their work. But stories concern men, all men, but especially me, for mine is the power in the house.

Circe has been used to portray the power of women in manipulating men. Men fell for the sweet and lovely voice of the monster.

Achilles…slit open [Tros'] liver, the liver spurted loose, gushing with dark blood, drenched his lap and the night swirled down his eyes as his life breath slipped away.

Men hold me formidable for guile in peace and war.

There will be killing 'till the score is paid. You forced yourselves upon his house.

You, why are you so afraid of war and slaughter? Even if all the rest of us drop and die around you, grappling for the ships, you'd run no risk of death: you lack the heart to last it out in combat—coward!

The tale of Achilles' wrath, and therefore the poem, ends only once the alienated hero is able to accept loss as an inevitable element in the shared life of mortals.

There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.

For rarely are sons similar to their fathers: most are worse, and a few are better than their fathers.

There is nothing more dreadful than the sea.

Even for the gods, it is not easy to know the minds of men.

The fates have given mankind a patient soul.