On mēnis ‘anger’: see especially the comment on I.01.001–002
On eris ‘strife’: see the comment on I.01.008–012
On neikos ‘quarrel’: see the comment on I.02.221
The main theme of the narration is signaled right away. By theme I mean a basic unit of content or meaning in Homeric poetry: see the inventory of Words and Ideas. The signaling is accomplished by way of the first word of the very first verse of the Homeric Iliad. The word is mēnis ‘anger’, I.01.001, and it refers to the anger of Achilles. A definitive book on this word is Muellner 1996. The Master Narrator begins his narration by focusing on this anger: he invokes a Muse, as a goddess of inspiration whom he addresses here simply as theā ‘goddess’, and he calls on her to sing for him this anger, I.01.001. On the term Master Narrator, see the inventory of Words and Ideas; on the idea of the Muse(s) as the goddess(es) of poetic inspiration, see the general comment at I.02.484–487 and the special comments at I.02.484 and at I.02.761. The subject that the Master Narrator has chosen to narrate, the anger of Achilles, is the grammatical object of the verb aeidein ‘sing’. So, the narrative subject is the grammatical object. The Master Narrator is calling on the Muse to sing the anger, not just sing about the anger. The song is not only about the anger: it is the anger itself. The song captures the total reality of the anger. The Master Narrator proceeds to tell about this anger: it happened because of a quarrel, as signaled especially by the words erizein ‘have strife’ at I.01.006 and eris ‘strife’ at I.01.008. This quarrel in the Iliad is parallel to another quarrel that is narrated in a “micro-Iliad” that we find embedded in the Odyssey. This micro-Iliad is the First Song of Demodokos, O.08.072–083, and the quarrel there is signaled especially by the word neikos ‘quarrel’ at O.08.075. It has been debated whether the quarrel scene in this “micro-Iliad” was modeled on a quarrel-scene in the Cypria, which was part of the epic Cycle. On the terms epic and epic Cycle, see the Inventory of terms and names. But the quarrel scenes of the Iliad, the Cypria, and the “micro-Iliad” can be seen as stemming from epic traditions that were originally independent of each other. On the term epic, used here for the first time in these comments on the Homeric Iliad, see again the inventory of Words and Ideas.