This book combines the exploration of the 'ethics' of the Iliad with its poetic and narrative techniques, all the way from touches of phrasing to the shaping of whole scenes and the interaction between scenes often separated by thousands of lines. These two approaches to the Iliad--through 'content' and through 'form'--are found to be inextricably worked together, which is why the book consists of 'soundings' or sample explorations, where larger arguments branch out from the observation of details in the formation of particular passages.